Project Bayport, Project One
by Aren Elsa
Summary: The Cybertronians come to Bayport, and Fenton Hardy takes on the case of a missing teenager. Lake, Toi and Swallowtail get mixed up with the Hardys in mystery. Of what importance is Waters Edge Casino ? Why are the Depceticons in Bayport ? Hi Simmons!
1. Arrival

_Project Bayport, Project One  
><em>_Chapter One; Arrival_

After several years when the heat died down from t he big chutzpa in New York, Lake managed to finally get her vacation, though Doc and Toi insisted to go with her and Swallowtail, the town Doc wanted to really just lay low in and have a vacation was none other then Bayport, largely untouched by the Decepticons, it was the perfect place ot hide out for a few weeks to a month or so and just relax. Lake did not fell the same way.

"The way I see it," the DeLorean was saying as they drove on the turnpike. "Bayport is the perfect place ot set up shop and lie low for a while, its off the map, literally. A tiny paradise that not even the 'Cons could find if they wanted to." He said,

"Then how did you find it ?" Lake asked in Mandarin, the two cars and one truck and only woman were all talking in Mandarin over radios

"Found it in a magazine. Traverls Checks I think" Doc replied,

"Not there." Toi corrected for him, "I saw it in AARP magazine" The black pickup truck said.

"See!" Doic said gleefully, "What'd I tell ya! The perfect paradise and place to lie low, nobody would think to look in such a place for such information." the DeLorean was in a happy mood, he'd even made the reservations at a rental house, a one floor place with a bathroom and large pool for Lake to have her fun with.

"I hope you know what you are doing" Swallowtail spoke up, the Mustang had been quiet the whole drive to Bayport. So she may have been thoughtful, or just letting Lake get some well wanted rest for once. It had been almost three years since the whole battle against Unicrons Herald, and so far Skystorm was faring well on Alesia. Heck the earth born Cybertronian was doing far more good then ever before. That and somehow Commander Mark felt more and more at ease around his Puddlejumper.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing, you just keep Lake from stealing dinners again and we should be OK here, they got a top notch police force here" Doc said.

"They also have a Casino too" Toi said, he'd done a lot of looking into Bayport and loved what he'd found, they also had a massive offroading area too, so that made the Toyota truck happy as well.

That perked up Lake on the spot, "Casino ?" Lake loved to gamble, but she also loved to fleece other people when she gambled.

"Yup" Toi replied, "and according to the wireframe map, the rental house is just up the road from there. We'll pass it on the way through town. Doc keep your wheels on the road please" Toi scoled, Doc just snickered, sometimes he got 'sore feet' when driving and hovered just off the road as he drove. Without a reply Doc reverted back to normal they were on a country lane that ran next to a rail line, Doc was sorely tempted to drive on the tracks.

* * *

><p>"You're kidding right ?" Joe Hardy asked his father Fenton. Someone had rented the house across the street from the Hardy Home, and from the sounds of it Joe didn't believe it, someone had three nice cars, or just a big family, unless It was a college group. Just the mention of one person driving a very nicely kept car, a Mustang, made him want to meet their new nighbors.<p>

But the words of his father made him think, it was too good to be true. "No Joe, it is the truth, a man by name of Emmet Brown and his son Toi, rented the house for a month long vacation from the vacation company. they're brining Toi's girlfriend along. they'll be arriving any minute. Emmet said that his son and his girlfriend were interested in the new casino. Toi, I was told, is a compuslive gambler and off roader. Used his winnings in Vegas and Detroit to outfit is truck." Fenton replied.

"So they come here later today" Joe thought, "Does Frank know ?" Fenton nodded, "What about Flicia ?" Felicia was Joe and Frank's slightly older cousin, one whom Joe was still getting used to having also a cat in his moms den. Blackie was fun to have around at times, a good talker, but complusive kleptomaniac.

"I think it best that you tell her, she listens to you over Frank or me any day, and even if I try to threaten her with arresting her for that whole Ruby theft two years ago..." Fenton grumlbed, Joe snickered, he remembered that weird theft, Blackie was said to be the thief, but it truly was not her, it was someone else posing as her, Blackie however had stolen the ruby and put it back in the bank where it belonged.

"I'll tell her dad, hopefully we wont have any thefts of stuff this time, everyone time someone new moves into town something is stolen." Joe said, it had become a weird pattern, ever since Blackie had moved in with them a weird pattern had begun, and most of the time the blame was placed sqaured on Joe Hardy's cousin Felicia Hardy.

Fenton nodded "I hope so, in the meantime I need to hit town, This kidnapping case has me baffled." Fenton had been trying to find a young woman who had gone missing in Bayport two weeks before, and so far every lead came up empty, Joe went to the door as his father grabbed his hat and coat and left the house, watching his dad drive off in the family car.

Now all he had to do was tell their current housecat not to steal from the new nighbors. Unless they had something very important. Like nuclear rods or some sort. That was a fun case. The whole Apeman thing. Joe found himself thinking on that case as he moved to the den of the house, Blackie was in the window. The black and white exotic feline woman sat on the sindowsill looking outside.

"Bring me anything to eat cousin ?" Blackie asked as Joe arrived, they locked her in there at times when new folks were visiting, mostly to keep her from lifting something unwanted, but then again she was used to it, nobody could find her there, and her uncle was nicer then she had ever thought, though at times he threatened to put her in a kitty carrier and lock her into a jail sell.

"Yes and no, Dad said you can have access to the kitchen, and he also said to stay with me for the next month. We got new nieghbors coming in and Dad doesn't want any troubles" Joe said, the computer was left empty, normally Frank was hard at work doing something or searching something, but ever since Frank had gotten that new job at the nearest Best Buy in Bridgeport, that made him away from home more often then normal. At least he was off the next week once he got home.

"Well, two out of three ain't bad, I hope your socks are clean..." Blackie snickered and scampered for the door, she was starving. Once in the kitchen she pulled open the door to the fridge and looked around at what was in it. Lots of meats. Good meats. With her head buried in the fridge she spoke somewhat muffled, "I heard we got new nighbors coming ?"

"You heard right" Joe said, great, why did he had to let her out of the den ? He wondered, this was going to be a fun month.

"Well, if you guys can keep the fridge this stocked I think the backyard will be nice enough for me." Blackie said, though she wanted to swim.

"Well, when our new nighbors show up, you are to be on your best behavor as a cat, you know that right ?" Joe said giving her the evil eye. Blackie just nodded, but said nothing. Joe sighed, this was going to be a very long month indeed.

* * *

><p>The day was slowly turning to night as Docs highbeam lights strobed on a sign, "BAYPORT 2 MILES" was written on it, "Guys we're almost here" Doc said over the raidio as the second sign was passed it read "BAYPORT CITY LIMTS" Doc turned onto a street exit, third street it was labeled. Now all they had to do was get ot their new home for the month.<p>

"How much longer ?" Lake asked, clearly sleepy, she wanted to see that new Casino, Maybe bet Epps out of his money too. They were to meet up there.

"Not long, lsee those lights ahead ?" Swallowtail said softly to Lake, prodding the woman in red to see, through sleepy eyes, the top of the Casino. "That is closer to town, Doc wants us to keep a low profile so we're taking the back roads."

"Right guys, up ahead is our stop, keep your wits about you, these folks got cameras everywhere, Toi, I want you to set up the scramble firewall, anyone that tries to spy us on any camera system sees a normal car and not us particularly. Start the scrambler as of ten minutes before our arrival into town" Doc said.

"You're the doc, Doc" Toi replied, the fellow in the driverseat of the black Toyota SR5 wrote down a few things on his hand as he drove, casting his glance up and down as if acting like a human driver. Toi was not one to really multitask well, it was not as bad as his airsickness disablity though, which was one of the reasons why they drove to Bayport instead of having Lift flying them there.

The three Autobots and one Human rolled onto a street and turned into a longish driveway, pulling to a halt in front of a closed garage of a nice quiant house. Doc opened his door and got out of his car frame, Toi did the same when he rumbled to a halt, the automatic hologram of a driver seat appearing as he stepped out of the truck.

"Well here we are" Doc said, the while haired man in a loud sport shirt was looking at the house as Swallowtail pulled into the drive, her car frame was dirty enough to not have the Cybertronian lettering seen. "We got the keys and everything, according to the letter the garage door opener is inside on the kitchen counter." He said.

Lake stepped out of Swallowtail, the Mustang turned off its lights, in the roadside lamp nobody could really tell if the three new arrivals were really human or not. "So this is Bayport. Does not look like much." The woman in red said, Toi was happy though as Doc scampered to the door to unlock it and find the garage door openers. There were two of them, and Toi prefered to be out in the outdoors anyhow. That said, the Truck tossed one to Lake, Lake looked at it, "What do I do with this." She asked

"Give it to Swallowtail so she has a door opener and a place to hide out if she has to." Toi said, Doc slid his door opener into his pocket. There were two garage doors, one for each and they were labled one and two on the door openers.

"OK, first things first, we all have some devices and packages that we have to have need for" Doc said, he checked his watch, "Once we have the computers and other belongings inside we can set up shop and hopefully keep under cover. Cameras may be out, but human eyes and their memory banks are not So keep a lookout for prying eyes as much as possible, that goes for you too Mustang!" Doc said over the radio, though he also spoke it aloud so Lake could hear him.

"Right, you're the doc, Doc. Can I get out now ?" Swallowtail asked. Lake snickered and hit the button, the door on the garage opened, it was large enough for even Toi to fit in there but he insisted on parking outside. Also to give cover to the other two due to how he was parked as it was. Swallowtail pulled into the garage and the door slid closed once she was safely within the building, a second later Swallowtail stepped out of the garage in her pretender unit. "Well, that was easy" She said upon entering the house.

The house was one floor and backwards L shaped, the bedrooms along the longer side that they all faced to the north, the west facing portion of the house was the front den, the front entryway, and the entry to the basement, the rest of the house consisted of a nice full gourmet kitchen and also a island counter with a full gas stove and oven. Though Lake was not a cook.

The house was perfect size, and they had a moving truck, Pinky, arriving the next day and only had some cots for Lake and the Pretender Units to act as if sleeping, though Lake could go five days straight and not sleep at all and never feel tired for that matter. The living room and den were perfect sized for what Doc wanted to do, so was the garage, set up shop computer wise and start making more weapons. Impact was sure to visit at some point.

There was five large windows at the front of the house, and also in the den which had two large front plate glass windows. There were no curtains currently though they could buy some come morning. The first thing Lake did was take out her 'laptop' After a brief hard look at Brains Lake told the 'Bot in Mandarin not ot transform until they had curtains to shield the bot from being seen. First thing Brains did was chitter a reply and let himself get setup on a kitchen counter, which was seen from the from the front windows, if barely that.

After about five trips to and back from the tarpcovered pickup bed to the house everything was set and they were ready to crash for the night. Though Lake found it odd, nobody was chasing them, there were no Decepticons around, and so far everything was peaceful, it was impossible for Lake to relax, she was just too nervous.

* * *

><p>Like Doc had said the cameras were out, but humans eyes weren't. Two pairs of eyes, one belonging to a human man and the other to a feline, who had human eryes oddly so. Were watching the new arrivals, Joe mostly out of curioicty and Blackie out of boredom. "So those are our new nighbors huh ?" the cat asked after a minute<p>

"Looks like." Joe replied. He liked the look of the two cars and the truck, classics all of them. After seeing t he mint condition o f the Mustang as it pulled into the garage of the house across the street and thus out of sight his eyes settled on the silver car, a DeLorean, who had the money to keep up a car like that ? Those were some sports cars.

The pickup truck though got him hooked, the Toyota SR5 was a nice looking rig and Joe liked the look of it, he also got a good hard look at who owned the three cars, a woman, asian in appearance, and two men it appeared, no, two women both of them asian in appearance and the two guys, one of them wild haired.

"So, looks like we got us some chinese nighbors, you think they serve carry out ?" Blackie asked thoughtfully watching the four people unload the DeLorean and the back of the Toyota with several boxes and some bags. Blackie found herself wondering just what was in those boxes and bags, must be some important stuff, she hoped. "That's the house with the nice pool right ? You think we could invite ourselves over to swim ?"

"What ?" Joe asked confuse,d "I thought you hated water ?" Joe gave a confused look at blackie, what on earth was she talking about anyhow ?

"I liked to swim before I became a cat OK ? Is that too much to care about for you ? Besides, those people look nice, and that house has a pool too remember ?" Blackie said somewhat indignant at her cousins words. And also somewhat embarrassed by the truth of those words.

"True they do look nice, but for the moment keep your paws to yourself alright ? I don't want to have to lock you in the den again, Dad's annoyed as it is." Joe said, Frank was also annoyed, slightly, mostly due to their computer. He wanted to look up those new renters across the street and was unable to find much of anything. Only doing a look up of the woman in red was he able to find some government files and mentions of Autobots, whatever those were.

"Don't worry Joe, I'll keep my paws to myself," she felt funny saying those words, but neverthless, she said them, after all he said them first. Joe just rolled his eyes and smirked. "Besides, how bad could these folks be ? They look nice enough."

"Yeah well, that's what you said about the last family that moved in there, you never saw the Great Dane until that day you got out to sneak over there." Joe snickered as he recalled how high strung Blackie was for the next week or so after that.

Blackie just stared at her cousin, "How in the world did you know that ?" She had told nobody of her time trying to snag and sneak into the nieghbors place, only to scamper like hell was after here to get away from the dog. She shook her head and curled up on the windowsill, still looking out at the new nieghbors "Don't answer that, its hard to keep secrets for your famly, its a small wonder still for mthat your mom let me stay when she found out what I truly am." Blackie said.

Joe nodded, his mom loved cats, and ever since Aunt Gurtude had died six months ago his mom, Laura Hardy, had taken Blackie, his cousin and her niece, into the family as a daughter, Blackie liked her aunt Laura, but sometimes the woman got a little mad for little reason, but she was a awesome cook. "Same here. I still can believe it myself." Joe never really knew just what his cousin really was until her severe illness that landed her in bed for several weeks. Only to end up as she was, able to change form between feline and human... mostly. A mutant... of sorts.

"Frank though avoided me a lot at the time, did he ever tell you why ?" Blackie asked. Frank Hardy was not exactly a cat lover, but he did put up with them, but he was unable to truly take to the fact that his cousin was both a cat and human at once, it was hard to accept. But what was most alarming was that Fenton took to Blackie almost instantly at his sister-in-laws' request. Fenton liked Blackie, mostly because of how helpful the cat-girl was in several cases.

But what was different was now, Frank was unable to findout who exactly had rented the house across the street, and he was getting to the point of wanting to do some snooping of his own. So that was startling when Frank knocked on Joe's door and entered a few seconds later. He found Joe and Blackie at the window, with Blackie curled up on the sil, "Still admiring the new nieghbors huh, Joe ?" Frank said.

"Yeah, did you knock ?" Joe asked, Frank just looked at his brother, yeah Joe was funny at times. "But yeah, we've been watching them unload their truck and car, looks like a good group, possibly a college group." Joe said. Blackie said nothing. She didn't want to get on her cousins bad side, even though the man was a few years younger then herself.

"Well, I can't find anything much on the new people there, but there is something about them I just can't shake, there is also something about that house too, the police drove by here yesterday and early this morning, a few of them had search dogs too, a tipoff" Frank set a paper on the bedside table and took a seat on the floor.

"Dad said the tipoff came last night, the police drove by when a car was spotted in the driveway of the house across the street, then this morning two police crusiers were parked at the edge of the road and also a K9 unit was here too looking around. It's possible the kidnapped person is nearby to here, but they didn't find anything and they didn't have the keys." Frank sounded worried.

"Don't worry Frank, I'm sure tormorrow we can meet our new nieghbors, maybe even get a tour of their place tomorrow too." Joe said thoughtfully, if they could manage to get into the place across the street and meet their nieghbors before the Waters Edge opened.

"And maybe go swimming!" piped up Blackie, Frank stared at his cousin, she was joking right ? Frank just snickered and set his head aganist the wall.

"I did some searches on the woman in red out there across the street, nothing much came up other then an old soldier program, Operation Red Cloak, it was started in the sixties apparently. An old program. Couldn't find out much though." Frank said.

Joe opened the folded paper that his brother set on the bedside table. He read the contents of the letter. "Tip; Strange dark colored SUV seen at 2501 East Thomas Street, lights were on briefly in the basement windows. Weird sounds came from the backyard and garage area. Sounded like screaming. Signed a friend" Joe read aloud, that meant trouble, and if these folks had just rented the place, they were in for a whole passel of trouble. He set the letter down and sat across from his brother. "You think these people are possibly kidnappers or some such ?"

"Dad told me a little about them, the women are racers, they work for the police in DC and also Diego Garcia, and sometimes in LA and Vegas, they race in illegal drug smuggling races to catch the crooks. Both of them do it. They use a Mustang of some sort, no add ons, no nothing. Its said the car can easily break the sound barrier. Nobody can catch up to it." Frank said. "The other two guys are a science teacher and a truck driving school student. They both work apparently with the two women that do those races."

"So you think that the kidnappers work with them or they're just in the wrong place at the wrong time ?" Joe said thoughtfully, Blackie curled up on the windowsil. Watching the nighbors, her eyes went wide at sight of the laptop being set up on the counter. Whoa, who could afford that kind of machine. Then there was the woman in red again, and something gold glinted in the womans hand. Her eyes locked on that. A necklace of some sort.

"I do not know what to think, dad thinks they're just renters without knowledge of the house true needs" Frank said "And if that's the case, if what the tip says is true, that house is a prime location foro something weird. How could someone access the basement, the house is locked tight." It was all confusing to Frank, but it didn't matter now. "How are we even going to get into the place ? 'hi my name is Frank this is my brother Joe and our cat Blackie, we thought we'd say hi and greet our new nighbors' may raise some suspiousions..." Frank said

"It may" Joe agreed, "For now we can just watch from afar I guess, they look like nice people though." Joe noticed how Blackie kept her eyes on the house across the street, constantly watching it. Every person t hat went in or out. Though her tail was wagging in the way of one stalking food. "Blackie... Don't be thinking what I think you're thinking." Joe warned

"If you are thinknig what I am thinking I'd suggest that you stop your thinking about what you think I am thinking. Otherwise I will make you stop thinking." Blackie said jokingly, Joe just smirked and looked back to Frank.

"I think we wait until sunlight and take a walk, its summer, so school is not in session. We can walk past the new nieghbors and introduce ourselves if we're spoken to, but nothing more, I want to get a closer look at the house." Frank said. And I want to get a closer look at those cars. Joe thought. Though he nodded in agreement to his brother. Finding out who owned the place was going to be hell, but finding out who was renting it, that was easier said then done.

Frank stood up, "Welp, I'm off for bed, see you tomorrow." He said, then he left, leaving Joe and Blackie once more in the room.

Joe watched the door close behind his brother, "well, that went well." He mused softly, Blackie kept her gaze on the woman in red, mostly her necklace, the blue eyed feline watched the woman in red for several minutes until she left the room, darnit, well ,that was a house to watch for sure! Joe turned out the light and laid in bed to sleep. Blackie kept her perch on the windowsil.

* * *

><p>Morning soon arrived for Lake, sooner then expected, even on a vacation she was alert and ever watchful, being the only human in the rented house Lake had told Doc of better to keep watch then worry of intruders. She was not able to relax as easy even with a Cybertronian system running to keep watch and keep out intruders.<p>

"We'll be fine!" Doc had said, "Nobody will intrude or try to gain access to our property as long as we're here, I got the sensors running and Swallowtail is in the garage. we're set for tonight." the man had said.

"But what if someone manages ot bypass the Cybertronian sensors ?" Lake had asked,

"Nobody has tried yet, besides Brains is ontop of everything on the counter there, if anything does go wrong, he'd alert us before anything bad happens, that's the best part of this place, if anything should go wrong, we'll know and be expecting the incoming danger" Doc replied. He patted Lake on the shoulder, "Just don't worry, relax, you're high strung after that incident at Stockton two weeks ago. Its not every day a woman like you can have the drop done on her." he said

That made Lake slightly nervous, and if someone had gotten the drop on her and tried to kidnap her, for some weird reason, that was one hell of a fight. Thankfully before she was caught she had managed to fight off her attackers and make a run for it, the louts never saw her coming, she fought them off far too easily. After all she was a supersoldier. That and Swallowtail was ready to go berzerk again. "When does Pinky arrive with the rest of the stuff ?"

"Tomorrow at noon, if you want we can set watch for three shifts of six hour each, I'll wake you at midnight. Then you can waken Toi at six. Now go to bed, Lake, you too Swallowtail. You both need sleep." Doc said giving them both a stern fatherly look. The guy was indeed something akin to a teacher, which was one of his main fronts. "Tomorrow I wont be here until around eleven thirty or so, Need to get up to that office and try and put down a buy out for the place, its perfect for what I need, I want to explore the place too, see how big our property is, the garage will only hold so much, so I'll have to see what else we can manage downstairs." Doc had said as Lake left to go to bed, Toi remained at the time for a few minutes longer talking with Doc before also heading to well, stasis lock. Or sleep mode, whatever the Autobots used for sleeping.

But it was morning and it could not come sooner, so Lake went and nudged Toi to wake him up, stepping over the supposedly sleeping form of Swallowail, tangled up in the pile of blankets. "Toi." Lake nudged the young man gently.

Toi woke up in a milisecond, "Yes ? What is it ? Oh morning Lake, anything happen ?" Lake shook her head, yawned stiffly and all but collapsed ontop of Swallowtail and the pile of blankets into a deep sleep. It was all Toi needed to know to take over the watch, Doc was also up and puttering about in the kitchen chattering with Brains.

Toi left the sleeping area of the house and moved towards the kitchen area. "Morning Doc, Pinky arrives at noon right ? What time does the office open again ?" Toi asked with a fake yawn, they had ot make it look good, Doc himself was dressed in a loud bathrobe

"The sales office opens at nine am sharp. Its in downtown, near to the casino, that does not open until three or so. So I can meet you there later if need be. I plan on being here though when Pinky and Ironhide arrive. Lennox said something of meeting up here with us along with Epps." Doc finished his glass of motor oil and put it in the sink.

He moved over to what looked to be a closet, removing his bathrobe and opening the door, once grabbing a hangar he put the bathrobe back on, only by then it was a light orange trenchcoat, "Oh, almost forgot, Pinky informed me over secure band that Screecher and Wheelie were also coming and will be here with us. Their alt modes of RC stuff is a perfect front for here to get proper survaliance of this town." Doc said as he moved towards the door.

"Right Doc, anything else ?" Toi said in reply as he poured himself a glass of refined energon.

"Yes, don't interact with anyone unless they get too nosy and only exject them if you truly must do so, some folks on this road like to meet their new nighbors, so if worst comes to worst, we can act socially. But keep up the front of being a human as much as you can, and try not to let word leak out of what is really going on here. I have two hours before the Sales Office opens so I am going to explore town a little bit and see what is here that we can use" Doc stressed before leaving to his car and pulling onto the road and soon disappearing around the corner. Heading into town.

Toi watched Doc leave and turned back to his coffee mug of Energon and stepped out of the house to get the newspaper, Doc had mentioned on the drive he requested the news to be delivered every morning. The young man then went back into the house once he had gotten the paper, seeing the first page, he whistled a low whistle

The front page read, "TEEN MISSING FOR TWO WEEKS, ANNOMOUS TIP LEADS NOWHWERE" then in smaller text was written, "WORLD FAMOUS DETECTIVE FENTON HARDY TAKES THE CASE THIS MORING" Toi read the paper but as he did so he also connected to an intralink system and did a search for Fenton Hardy, a world class detective with an eye for crime solving. Just like Lake.

In the bedroom in the pile of blankets two women slept like rocks, well sorta, Swallowtail snoozed in sleep mode, a steady thrummm as if purring came from her as she was tangled up in the blankets, Lake was also tangled up with her and the blankets in sleep as well. Using Swallowtails left arm for a pillow at that. At least until Swallowtail rolled over and Lake fell off the cot, but never woke up.

It was a few minutes more when Swallowtai l got up, without too much trouble she distangled herself from the mass of blankets, and her driver, and got out of bed. Within a minute her 'hair' was distangled and she was in cleaner appearing close, better then snoozing like a robot in the true mode for the unit, Swallowtail thought, she spotted Lake, half on and half off the camp cot the two had shared. Well, Lake had slept in weirder places. Swallowtail mused as she left the room and headed for the kitchen.

Swallowtail spotted Toi drinking a glass of Energon, "Morning Toi." The Mustang said, the strangely tattooed woman looked normal, save for the weird tatoo markings on her face and neck. The Cybertronian writing circled her right eye and went also down the right side of her neck in the same pattern. Disappearing at somepoint on the transcanned skin. All of the writing matched perfectly the writing on the Mustang car frame.

"Mornning Mustang, sleep well ?" Toi smirked as he read the paper. Swallowtail noticed it and also did a intranet search on the guy, Fenton Hardy, detective... oh joy. They lived across the street from the guy! Toi noticed Swallowtails look at the paper "Doc ordered it, while we're here rather then using the intranet uplink, we can read like humans. Sure it ain't Cybertronian but hey, it does alright. Says in here an annomous tip led nowhere for the local police, after wards Fenton Hardy, detective of Bayport took the case as of noon yesterday. The missing porson, one Tamara Reese, was reported missing from her car at ten oh nine am on Tuesday June first." Toi read from the paper. "That was two weeks ago today. And 12 years to the date of the Las Vegas event with Megatron. I'm still surprised that the 'Cons never found this town, according to the wirefram maps of the place nothing here's been touched or damaged at all by the Decepticons when Sentniel Prime tried to move Cybertron here." Toi mused.

"Yeah, about that, that was six years ago wasn't it ? Then three years ago was that fight with unicrons herald," Swallowtail said

"And your death and finding of the Icegate. At least we got some good weapons out of that deal." Toi said. Que had made a full on stockpile of Autobot and human interfaced weapons, and though the nice 'Bot and weapons nut was killed by Soundwave, who was then killed by Bumblebee seconds later, Que had made dozens of weapons that worked well with the humans, like the Boomsticks, bombs that could easily penetrate a Spark casing if they were placed right, some grappling hooks, even some full on body armor for the humans too. But the main thing was the stuff he had made for his comrades, he like Doc and Impact had made so many weapons to use against the Decepticons it was nuts. Two huge silos loaded with the weapons, though thnkfully none of them nuclear in make.

"Yeah thanks for reminding me about that" Swallowtail grumbled, she hated to be reminded that she had died, but she now possessed the Starsaber in her spark casing. It was what kepot her alive at the moment, her spark had merged with it, though she was not yet fully a prime, or was she ?

"Your welcome" Toi replied as he went back to his paper. "Says here the police got the tip and the tip was for this adress, nothing was found and that the tip sender mentioned that he or she had heard screaming." Toi looked up briefly when Brains started speaking, "What is it brains ?"

"We have incoming." Brains replied, since he had control over the nearby camera systems and the fact that Toi had one through his headlights, the Toyota uploaded a feed from his truck mode.

"Looks like two young guys and a cat." Toi said, watching as a young dark haired boy, and a young blonded haired boy with him were walking on the side of the road. Swallowtail snickered

"And we wanted to keep this a low key operation." the Mustang mused softly.

"That we still do, is Lake asleep yet ?" Toi asked, Swallowtail nodded,

"Fell out of bed too, never woke." she replied

"Well that is good" Toi said, "As long as these two, looks like Fenton Hards kids I think, Names are Frank Hardy and Joeseph Hardy, looks like a pair of good hearted kids to me" Toi said mostly to himself, he went back to his paper. "let them in Brains, Swallowtail you may answer the door."

"The are hading up the driveway now. Swallowtail the floor is yours" Brains said, then he went back to being a normal laptop, playing chess, but taking his time at it rather then rushing to win, which he could easily do if he wanted to.

Swallowail went to the door, she noticed the two boys get closer to Toi's truck, which by then was clean from the nights early rainshower. Tan colored mud was on the driveway and dripping off the black truck. The two men stopped at the truck, admired it for a moment, though Swallowtails gaze was on them she also watched the cat closely. She was not very fond of cats, and Brains liked them even less.

Joe spotted movement inside the house near the door as it opened, a young apparing clearly Asian woman with light brown hair was seen, though what stood out was the markings on her face and neck. Swallowtail called out to them, "Good morning! Is there something I can help you guys with ?" She had an asian accent to her voice.

Joe spoke up first before his brother could put his foot in his mouth, "Good morning, Yesterday evening I couldn't help but notice this truck arrive, I'm a fan of nice classic cars, and I told myself, better meet the owner. So yeah, My name is Joe, this is my older brother Frank. We live across the street. Is the owner home ?"

Swallowtail sent a comm connection to Toi, who shook his head, No, he was not leaving his spot in the kitchen until Pinky and Ironhide arrived at noon, "He is" Swallowtail said, "But he's asleep still, I'm the only one up at the moment." She said stepping out onto the porch, allowing both Frank and Joe Hardy to see her, clearly asian in clothing style as well as looks. Though what stood out the most was the strange tattoos on her face and neck. But it didn't matter at the moment At least the womanwas outside. "I'm Swallow" Swallowtail said, her brilliant unblinking blue eyes stared out at the world. Which made Frank nervous.

"Nice to meet you, is there any chance we could speak to the owner of this truck, it looks great, I'd like ot see it in action at some point, how long are you guys here for ?" Joe said, hoping that the woman, Swallow, and her friends, or if they were family or some such, were going to be there a while.

"Right now a month last I knew, wont know until later today when Uncle Emmet gets back if we'll be here longer" Swallowtail replied. She hated putting up a front like this, though was shocked that these people here had no idea of the Cybertronians being on earth. Not that it really mattered much.

"That's good to know, we might see you guys later then before you leave, Nice meeting you" Joe said all but pulling his brother and Blackie with an unspoken word, away from the house, Blackie was staring at the strangely tattooed woman, no necklace was on her, where was it ? Swallowtail watched the two men and the cat leave before going back into the house, locking it behind her as the two young men left when she reentered the house. She went back to the kitchen "That went well."

"So I heard" Toi said taking a sip of his Energon.

"They live across the street, they're Fenton Hardy's sons apparently, and they have a cat." Swallowtail said.

"Wonderful, just what we wanted," Brains grumbled from where he sat on the counter near to the portable energon refinery they had bought from ther Junkion Prybar with scrapmetal. Bolts was still surprised it worked so well.

"Quiet Brains, those boys may be helpful over time, the dark haired one seemed more interested in my truck then anything else at the moment, if only Doc were here..." Toi mused reading the paper some more. There was one thing he liked to see there, a local off roading group was having an outing later that week, perfect cover. "That boy, Joe Hardy, wants to see me in action huh, I'll give him some action." he smirked, already folliowing the link provided in the paper and registering now just himself from Swallowtail and Lake as well.

"The perfect cover, we can explore the town a bit more and get to know the locals a bit while we're at it, Doc said he'd try and get back before Pinky and Ironhide get here though." He said.

"Lets hope he gets back, because at the moment Lake is asleep, out cold, and I doubt even Wheelie can waken her up." Swallowtail said.

"No worries" Brains said, "Wheelie can wake up the dead with his screaming if he really wanted to." That was true in itself, the little combat drone was not much more then a screamer alarm, heck if he screamed loud enough he could waken the whole nieghborhood.

"Let us hope then that screaming wont be needed" Toi said, thinking the same as Swallowtail, "At least he wont have access to energon goodies" Toi mused.

Swallowtail just stared at him, "What ?"

"Nothing" Toi replied, turning a page in his paper.

"Its about Screecher isn't it ?" Swallowtail pressed. Screecher had been given an Energon Goodie after doing something right to plan for once, from Doc, so if anything went wrong, they could blame him and him alone. So far so good...

Toi said nothing, he merely continued to read the paper as if nothing was wrong. Swallowtail felt in her spark that Bayport was going to be a fun town for sure.


	2. At the Waters Edge Casino

_Project Bayport, Project One  
><em>_Chapter Two; At the Waters Edge Casino_

It was not an easy trip, but it was well worth it, Doc thought, he looked at his watch, right on time had the sales office opened, accepted him, and minutes later he walked out as the owner of the house he and the others were renting, now they were not renters anymore, they were the sole owners. So that meant some very fine points of interest to be added to this fun party. Namely, get to know the town.

Doc got into his DeLorean and shut the door, activating his Comm unit he called to Toi, "Toi, this is Doc, I got the title to the house, and the last set of keys from the sales office. How are things on the home front ?"

"_Just peachy Doc,_" Toi replied, "_Swallowtail met two of the neighbors, they were interested in my truck, I'd have gone to meet them but then again I'm reading the paper._" Toi replied.

"That's good, just don't let them into the house until we have all our stuff there and set up," Doc said, then he asked, "Have you heard from Pinky and Ironhide yet ?"

"_Yeah Doc, Pinky radioed in about twenty minutes ago ,said she and Ironhide were right on time to arrive at ten to noon today at the house. Pinky's got Battlespikes trailer though, and Ironhide has Twitchy's horse trailer, both are loaded with our stuff we'll need to stay here for a month._" Toi replied over the radio, everything was moving right on time.

"Copy that, I'm gonna check out the town and arrive five minutes before Pinky and Ironhide are due. Doc out." Doc then killed the comms and started up, pulling out onto the road he drove around town, finding the police station, fire station, and some other points o f interest, like the courthouse, mayors office, and otherwise. They were all there.

He also took a good hard detailed look at the Waters Edge Casino, a brand new casino in Bayport, perfect front, Toi seemed excited, but Lake even more, the one thing she enjoyed more then drinking herself drunk {which was not often} was gambling. This place seemed to hit the spot, he zoomed in on the hours of operation time-slots. Three PM to midnight sun-Thurs, three to three Fri and sat, perfect! Doc pulled onto the main road again and drove around for another hour before heading back to the house.

* * *

><p>Inside the Hardy home Joe was finishing up breakfast, Frank was on the computer typing away. "What are you doing now Frank ?" Joe asked, their father had left before they got up to work on the case some more, it was truly that baffling. The boys were just barely able to meet one of the new renters across the street.<p>

"Trying to do a picture match up to that woman I swear I'd seen her before somewhere." Frank said, he typed into a image search, soon finding several matches, "Aha!" he crowed triumphant. Startling Blackie off her ends of the table and onto the floor with a startled "Aeip!"

Joe set his dishes in the sink and went over to read with his brother, "Mission City Project, wait isn't that Vegas ?" Joe asked, Vegas was often called Mission City due to how many military installations were near the place. Frank nodded.

"Listen to this," He said ,then read "'Eye-witnesses reported several strange robotic creatures fighting within the city, this was then said to be an experiment gone wrong, the United States government paid for all the damage to the city of Las Vegas.' and there's more, It says here that the military were seen sending small teams to find data of some sort pertaining to the experiment gone wrong. One of those people were identified as one miss Layla One. She was injured and barely able to walk, she was taken to Las Vegas medical Center and treated, two days later she disappeared from the hospital, last seen with a woman of similar appearance," Frank pointed at the blue eyed woman that looked exactly like the woman they had met that morning.

Joe whistled, even without tattoos, Swallow was a looker. "You think the woman we met and this woman in that picture is the same ? that's 12 years old!"

"Possible, but it is worth looking into." Frank said, opening another window on the screen and doing a search on local events, "I think that truck owner might be joining in some of the local events, if we can get in on staff on some of them , we could try and pin\point and corner one or two of our new neighbors" Frank said. He found three events, one of them the monthly off roading event that Bayport always held every third Friday and Saturday with a camping night, the other two were a martial arts compilation and a sword fighting event. Both Layla One, Swallow, and one Toi Fan were all entered in the three events.

"Well, we're on staff for those last two, events" Joe said, "Mom's co running the sword fighting event, and Dad insisted on City Hall having us on for the martial arts competition to keep things as fair as possible." Little did Joe know just how unfair Lake could really be.

"First thing is first, we could take your jeep to the off roading weekend, its also a camp-out night as well. So we can pack for it, call Chet and Biff, I think they'd like to come along with us" Biff was a major off road buff and often worked on his own pickup truck, a Dodge Dakota convertible 4x4, Chet though was more calmer then normal for the guys,normally he liked doing hard things, but as long as it didn't involve gunfights with him as a target.

"Right I'll call them." Joe said going to the phone, he died the number then looked out the window. "Neighbors home it looks like." He said as a silver car, a DeLorean, pulled into the drive and entered the garage.

Chet picked up the phone on the other end. "Chet, it's Joe, did I wake you up ?... haha... listen, we got some new neighbors here across the street... yes someone finally rented the place... Well, the new folks are entered in that sword fighting competition, the martial arts competition, and also the off road camp out this weekend. Frank and I are on-board for the off road camp out, and we got two empty seats, Frank said to contact you and Biff to see if you wanted to come along, we could take my Jeep." Joe had a dark green Jeep, well, what had been a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited, thanks to Biff Hooper the Jeep was more of a military type of truck, could go literally anywhere. Apparently the answer was a yes, "Alright we'll see you and Tony at lunch to discuss plans for the weekend. See you then, bye!" Joe hung up.

Frank looked at his brother, "Chet said he'd like to meet our neighbors, but also said we had a lunch date with him and Tony. I think Tony told Biff that he'd join us this time around if we went, but we'll need two trucks, and I haven't called Biff yet." Joe said.

"Well, call him up, I'm going to go downstairs and check the camping gear, let me know what Biff says when I get back up here" Frank set his own dishes into the sink and headed to the basement to check the camping gear.

Joe spoke into the phone when Biffs dad answered "hello, mr Hooper, Its Joe Hardy, is Biff around ? …. Sure I'll wait... Hello Biff ? Its Joe..." Was all Frank heard as the door closed behind him.

Frank turned on the light and spotted the stuff needed, he began going through it, making extra counting to include Tony and possibly the girls if they wanted to join in on the weekend, but knowing them and offroading, a most likely not gonna happen, either way Until he knew what Biff said to Joe, Frank counted one extra on everything.

Joe scampered downstairs when the conversation ended, "Biffs been planning on the weekend originally wanted to take his dad, but its his parents wedding anniversary, So he's free to do whatever, so I said to tell Tony, since we're seeing them all at lunch at the mall today we can make further plans there... where's Blackie ?" Joe had forgotten in all the excitement to keep an eye on his cousin. Who was, at the moment curled up on a sofa pillow to sleep, so she was out of trouble for the time being.

"Good, help me with this, got so far five of everything to be safe I counted one extra on everything." Frank said, the two then went over a checklist, they always did when they went camping, and found they had everything they required for the time being. "OK, Looks like we're set" Frank said, All they had to do now was get the stuff to the garage for the loading of both the Jeep and the Dakota. Soon they were all set and everything was upstairs ready to pack onto the trucks.

* * *

><p>It was then as Joe closed the garage when he saw the two pickup trucks with two massive trailers attached. "Whoa, who went color-blind ?" He asked his brother. Frank turned and looked, he stared at the pink F650 flatbed dump-truck, the massive truck had a large Uhaul trailer attached to its rear bumper hitch. The black GMC TopKick that was with it had a large long horse trailer packed with furniture. The pink truck had halted in front of the house, wherein the black truck had backed up, both engines roaring loudly as they maneuvered the trailer expertly up the drive, aiming backwards, just barely seen from what Frank could see as there was a large bush that shielded the view.<p>

"Who would paint a truck that color pink ?" Frank asked, sadly neither Hardy had seen the owner of the truck get out to help unload the black trucks trailer. Both trucks looked off-road ready just by appearance alone. The two watched as the black GMC backed the horse trailer up the drive. Then they both noticed a woman with long dark hair, of Mexican heritage apparently, get into the pink massive truck and pull forwards, the engine rumbled a diesel sound. And Frank thought he heard something more as the creak of breaks going into gear, Angry sounds from that squeal, And the truck

Angry diesel

Doc was directing Ironhide as the massive truck backed up the horse trailer, Motioning with his hands of what direction to turn and when to turn that way, finally he held his hands out. "Good, that's it right there!" He called on the comms Ironhide halted and parked, the trucks engine going silent as the driver, a large burly heavily muscled man in a dark gray tank top got out of the driver seat.

As he did so Pinky backed up cleanly next to him, trailer and all without any errors. The dark haired Autobot went to the back and opened the trailer, inside the Uhual trailer was many boxes, it was practically a truck on a hitch. Pinky's massive bed was also temporarily remade into a box transport allowing to store even more boxes of Docs fun machinery needs as well.

The unloading began, after about an hour the horse trailer was emptied and Ironhide pulled forwards and once more backed up the trailer, this time it was set along the garage, unseen from anyone. The trees and thick tall bushes were perfect to hide out in if they had need to do so. Another hour passed and everything was removed from both Pinky's bed and the massive rented Uhaul trailer.

When the last box was placed inside the house, which was now once again a house owned by nothing more then a group of machines and maybe a human or two. Epps had said he wanted to see Bayport, and maybe go with Lake to the new casino. OF which that was the first word asked. "Don't worry Lake, I went by the Casino the major playing tables don't start until six PM, the place officially opens for the day at three, five minutes ago. So all we have to do is unpack, then you can hang out at the casino... no stealing now."

Lake snickered, the woman in red was not one to just steal unless she had need to do so. "Who said anything of stealing ? I just want to see the place first." It was then that Toi came out and saw that Pinky was ever so close to having that trailer bumper so close to his truck frame. "Don't worry Doc, we'll be fine, just keep Swallowtail and Brains out of trouble."

"Right, have fun you two. Try not to get noticed" Doc said, adding the last part as an afterthought. Not that it truly mattered, Lake was an easy one to notice. Doc watched the truck head off with Lake in the passenger seat. As did two other pairs of eyes. "I hope they don't get into trouble." Doc muttered.

"Relax Doc, you watch over Toi too much. Give the guy a break, let them have their fun, they'll be fine" Pinky said, it was true, Doc watched Toi like a hawk at times around casinos. What was the worst that could happen ?

PLENTY...

* * *

><p>Joe watched as the black Toyota with monster tires left the driveway across the street, there was a woman in red clothing with him. But Joe was unable to see if the woman was Swallow or not. But the woman looked a lot like the other woman. "Now what ?" Joe asked, they had gone to lunch and the Hardy's were joined by Biff and Tony, both young men driving Biffs dark green Dakota. "Should we follow them ?" Joe asked.<p>

Both Tony and Biff agreed, and Frank nodded, "We can take the jeep, if we get into trouble we can get out of it easier." He said, everyone agreed and piled into Joe's Jeep. Joe drove.

As they drove a few cars behind the black Toyota truck Joe spoke, "Alright, how weird is this. The morning of a tip off to the police about the house across the street from ours a new owner rents it, next thing dad finds is the house is purchased by one Emmett Brown and his nephew Toi something, must be a Japanese name. Either way the house is now owned by the guy."

"You think the weird noises two nights ago had something to do with it ?" Biff spoke up from where he sat in the backseat. Tony was keeping an eye on things and using the wifi connection system Joe had to do data look ups on local trucks.

"Possible" Frank said. "But we don't know for sure exactly what's going on, it has dad up to his ears in confusion, every new lead leads literally in circles." The case had a lot of dead ends and most of them ended at the front door of that house.

"Hey guys, that truck is a classic, Must be fully restored or well kept, its a 1985 model year, SR5 4x4 stretch cab, that model, the SR5 was discontinued in 1998. that thing is old. Well kept." Tony spoke up.

Joe thumped his hands on the steering wheel, "So we got a classic car driver with a truck capable of mudding easily ?" He asked

"It looks it" Tony said, Biff was even interested, Ever since Tony had gotten that iPod Touch things had gotten very interesting to say in the least. "The truck is an exact match, if I can get close enough I can do a picture search and try to find the vin number on it." Tony said

Joe nodded and gave the jeep some more gas, the green transport shot forwards through a yellow light as it was about to turn red, "How close do you need to be ?" He asked.

"If you can get at least close enough to the driver side door, maybe even the hand of it I think that will get what I need" Tony said. Joe kept up the speed, however at the next light was what was unexpected for them all. There were no cars in front of Joe as he came to a halt, and he was right next to the black truck. Tony got his picture and was typing away, Joe looked towards the truck briefly, a man and woman sat in there, he was unable to see if the woman had any tattoos on her face, she was dressed in head to toe in red apparently, even her light brown hair was covered save for two braids on either side of her face in the red cloth.

Thankfully none of the windows on the jeep were open, nor did the windows appear to be open on the Toyota truck as Tony smiled, "Got it guys, the VIN for this truck is number zero zero two nine three Alpha Romero nine three seven November Charlie one Phoenix" He said, "This is the same truck that was in that car crash twenty years ago, the truck was totaled. It was on the nationwide news too." Tony started flipping through web pages

"If that was the truck, its in great shape now." Frank murmured softly looking briefly at the truck then to the backseat. Biff nodded and whistled,

"That rig looks very well kept. Wonder who owned it." He said.

"Got it, right here it says the wreck was bought back by Toyota itself, the company rebuilt the truck piece for piece then resold it to a truck collector, who gave it to his son Thomas Langford as a eighteenth birthday gift, the truck was used in several driving instructional movies made by Mr Langford Sr for several high schools. The truck is best know for its appearance in upstaging Bigfoot at the last Monster Truck rally in Detroit."

Biff, Joe and Frank all whistled "Is that the owner now ?" Joe asked.

"Nope, the owner was killed in Egypt six years ago. Before his death however he made in his will and testament that those with him, the man closest to him at the time of his death was to receive his truck, a man named Toi something, can't understand the rest of it." Tony replied. The truck was indeed a nice one. "There's also references to something about a old military project called Project Soldier" he added. He touched a link on the screen, "Whoa. Guys get a load of this."

"What ?" Frank asked as Joe maneuvered through the streets and ended up behind the Toyota again as it pulled into a casino parking garage. Joe pulled to a halt. The Waters Edge Casino was a brand new casino in Bayport, and their father had been asked by the Mayor of Bayport to look into the casino owner's background, a troubled childhood, but good and surprising track record, Frank noticed it too, "Waters Edge Casino... the guys a gambler ?"

"Maybe, but what about the woman ?" Joe asked.

Tony crowed as he found the information he sought, "Guys this is it. About twenty years ago there was a recruitment program that the Marines were doing called Project Soldier, Basically it began training students in second grade to end of college, by the second year of college the students to the program were taught combat field tactics and training with all sorts of weapons. There is also mention of a program called Project LAKE. No idea what its about though, every time I click the link it gives me a "access denied" page warning." Tony said reading off the information on his iPod.

"So its possible this woman and the guy are gamblers, lets park and go in. Never been into a casino before so this will be a first" Biff said, the others agreed, since they were all of age, {minimum of 18 were allowed on the main floor, unless just eating with family at the restaurant.} Joe parked the Jeep and they all piled out. Tony slid his iPod into his pocket.

The four then showed their Ids to the guard at the door and he allowed them all in. Joe was keeping watch for the woman's red clothed head, he spotted her in almost an instant. She was tall, but still, red like that was sure to draw some eyes, so at the moment then things were just briefly more fun as the man she was with seemingly went to a Texas Hold'Em table and dealt into the game.

"I'm going to look around, mingle a bit, we'll meet back right here in an hour, if anything happens use the radios." Frank said, the others nodded, Frank headed for the stairs to the second level of the main gaming area. The layout of the place was simple, deep red carpet everywhere, most of the staff at Waters Edge were Asian or American in some way, most of the waitstaff were clearly Asian All of them dressed in glittery green and red, their hair done up in the traditional style.

Joe moved over to the bar, he handed the keys to his jeep to Biff, "Hold this, I'm going to see what they have over there at the bar, I'm in the mood for a Dt. Coke, you want anything ?" Biff shook his head, Tony wandered to several tables, and watched a game, the same game that the woman in red and her fellow were playing. So far the woman was winning.

* * *

><p>The dealer dealt the cards onto the table, as he did so the man and woman in red spoke together in a strange language, Mandarin apparently, really really old Mandarin. "You think this is wise ?" Lake asked Toi, they were barely in town twenty four hours and already they got tailed to the casino.<p>

"Don't panic. If anything goes wrong head for the sewers, you saw the wireframe map I had of the place, just head there, lure anyone if you must and leave them there, then meet me at the parking garage, if all else fails, grab a taxi to the house. Preferably with the driver this time" Toi replied, he placed two chips in to match the last bet, as did Lake, however she raised another four.

"With the way things are going, we wont have to worry about the taxi." Lake replied, she looked at her cards, Toi looked at his. The pair knew how to cheat when they had the dire need to do so, but this was just casual play. Nothing major for them to worry over if they lost. But as it turned out, the last card flipped was simply enough to land all the chips on Lake. "I think we should go, three rounds are enough for me for now. I want to explore the Casino some more."

"Suit yourself" Toi replied. Lake stood and took up her small rack of chips, about 800 dollars worth, and headed for the cashier, once she had the cash she wandered around the casino as Toi won another two rounds then also left the table to wander around. Nobody assumed that Toi was a machine, he looked every bit human, which made many people alarmed when they found out the truth later.

Tony got onto his radio as he left the table, his eyes on the woman in red. None of the guys saw the black and white creature enter and look around until Blackie poked her cousin in the ankle. Tony was on the radio "OK, target's moving, Frank she's headed your way, I got the guy in my sights, Joe, Biff, he's headed towards you. I'm heading to the wifi hotspot and see what they have here."

"Got it" Biff replied as Joe picked up Blackie, he knew his cousin had wandered around town that day, she'd scampered off when they went to lunch. Joe held his cousin in one arm and drank his Dt Coke in the other hand. Both young men saw Toi enter the bar area and order a ice tea. "Looks like a normal guy. Getting an iced tea and moving to a table it seems" Biff said into his radio.

Frank answered "Right, everything seems normal, but remember this is part of dads case, I want to find out just what is going on." He went quiet when he spotted the woman in red entering a glass walled elevator Well, that was different. He got a good look Lake, whom he guessed was Layla One, from the Vegas news story. She was dressed from head to foot in scarlet of various layers, the only other color the woman had was a dark jade colored necklace that looked very expensive. Frank got on his radio, "I got a bead on miss red, going to try to get closer." He said putting away his radio he moved to the elevator doors and pressed the key to go up to the top floor, level nine of the ten floor building. Perfect amount of time to get to know, or at least get close to his new neighbor.

Lake stood in the glass walled lift for a few moments when it halted at floor three to let on two men, one of them light haired, onto the lift, one man pressed level four, her level was five, the blond haired man pressed nine, penthouse level. Lake said nothing and merely watched the sliding door slide closed, she felt eyes on her and briefly cast her gaze onto the two others in the car with her, one of them was looking over her intently the other however was counting his money.

Her hazel eyes met his brown eyes, well, this was unexpected, this guy looking for some fun ? she hoped not. She looked Frank up and down for a moment before focusing her gaze back on the gold painted doors of the lift, the doors opened and the other man stepped out, the blond haired man remained, a second later the floor for the woman went unlit and the doors opened, allowing her to leave

As she left the car she spoke, "If you like what you see, then come no closer, I am taken already" Well, she read him wrong for sure, the doors closed, the woman then disappeared from sight.

As the doors closed and the lift moved up once more Frank got onto his radio, "Lost our miss Red, clearly Asian, anyone got tabs on her fellow ?" Frank said.

"Nada" Came Tony. He had gone instead to a wifi hotspot and hooked up, looking into the Casino's layout as best possible. The casino was well set up, it had a full bar on the first floor, along with several gambling tables, some private poker rooms in the second floor, and lastly the rest of it past the seventh floor was penthouses. Everything else was sports on the fifth and sixth floors, and the fourth and third floors both held billiards tables, and assorted darts rooms. This was definitely a gambling joint

"Got him, drinking a tea at table, stack of several hundreds being counted as well. Should we approach ?" Joe said.

"No, do not approach, the last thing we want is them to be alerted to us," Frank said as the lift door opened to the penthouse level. Frank left the elevator and took a look around before heading to the left, the hallway went in two directions, then turned to the right, looking to lead in a rectangle on the top floor of the ten floor building. It was a nice casino Frank found himself thinking.

"True, hang on Frank Miss Red is joining our pickup truck driver at table. Ordering a rum it looks like." Joe said. He said nothing of Blackie, who was to be with him regardless. How she had managed to get past the guards at the door made him wonder just what the cat had to do to get past the guy.

"Alert me to what happens when it happens," Frank said over the radio. So far the case was confusing, these people liked the casino and seemed very on top of things at the poker tables. Now if only Frank could figure out exactly how it could work out later.

* * *

><p>Lake rejoined Toi at the table, a waiter arrived presently and requested what the woman wanted to drink, to get the reply simply, "Jack Morgan Rum, hardest you have." The waiter nodded and left quickly to fulfill the order. Once the waiter was gone Lake spoke in mandarin to Toi who was counting his winnings. Five hundred, so combined they had little less then fifteen hundred between them. "I think I was followed. A man was watching me carefully on the elevator to the fourth floor, he pressed nine," She said in Mandarin.<p>

"Relax, the worst that can happen is you getting freaked out over winning six rounds in a row. I never knew you had it in you." Toi replied. He was right, Lake needed to relax, she was too high strung after that fist fight with Mark, the Alesian Commandant. Though the man was indeed nice at later meetings she recalled. Helpful too.

"You are right" She said withdrawing her winnings, exactly eight hundred dollars. She slid the pile of tens and twenties over to Toi, who began counting them into his own twin stacks of tens and twenties. Exactly fourteen hundred dollars were on the table. He bundled them into one stack and slid them into his vest, in appearance he slid the money into a pocket, but it was everything but, as Toi put the money into a compartment to hold it all in one place unseen within himself.

Lake's drink arrived, she took a sip. How were they going to pay for this ? She wondered briefly when the waiter she recognised as a member of NEST, it was Epps. "Ray! What are you doing here." Lake asked when Epps sat down after pulling up a chair to the table.

"Don't worry I clocked out for half an hour, I got a hour long lunch, I can use it in two parts, Doc snapped me into the work detail here to keep tabs on things, don't worry about the rum or ice tea, its paid for through NEST." He said. NEST in Bayport ,that was trouble some... very trouble some

Toi spoke up, "What interest does NEST and Washington have with Bayport ?" the Toyota was curious to how humans worked and tried to establish proper connections between two places and how they were bridged. This proved to be one of those times.

"Doc didn't find it nor did anyone else until last week, but the 'Cons are up to something, they have Pretender units just like you guys do, and some of them started business ventures aiming and draining the world clean. One of the leads Optimus got lead straight here to Waters Edge, so Doc inserted me into this places work detail as a backup guard with the cover of a waiter at the lounge." Epps replied

"There's also that weird missing persons report as well, our house was mentioned in a anonymous tip, but the police found nothing. You think it connects ?" Toi said. Lake kept quiet as Epps and Toi got into a discussion of some sort.

Lake let her eyes wander, she spotted two men she had never seen before, one of them light haired the other dark haired, one of them held a cat in his arms. Who let felines in here ? Well they must have let cats in since there was a few dogs on leashes, that and Lake herself as Brains called it, was more akin to a cat then to a monkey.

Joe averted his eyes quickly as he and Biff were lead to a table near to the threesome, but not too close, maybe two tables over. Not that it fully mattered at that moment, Joe set Blackie on the open seat, the cat purred softly, clearly acting the part of a cat. The Waters Edge Casino was well known to pet owners as a premier Pet and Gambling location. Though they had rules to not use pets for bets at the gambling tables, pets belonged to their owners, that was their rules.

Biff heard and noticed one of the waiters get recognised by the woman, apparently a friend or some such, Biff thought. He finally ordered a drink, a Coke, He then got bored and opened a menu to see what they had there in terms of food, pretty much everything from local foods to international cuisines. The place was a international hub more then likely.

It was then that Tony joined them, he had made hard copy downloads of the floor plan, all he needed now was access to a printer so they could each have a copy. "This seat taken ?" Tony asked when he neared the boy's table. Joe shook his head, Tony sat down, "Hey Blackie," He said giving the feline on the next chair over a brief scratch behind the ears. He set his iPod on the table and ordered a Sprite.

"Find out anything ?" Joe asked, he spotted frank briefly on the second floor n ear the railing, the older Hardy boy was watching, no doubt, the woman in red.

"Other then that our friends are good gamblers, not much. Got the floor plans to this place though, it was really easy to hack into the network drive for this place. They got security stuff everywhere though. It'd be hard to steal anything from here." Tony replied with a firm nod. "unless we had the right tools..."

"… or the right people." Joe mused, Tony knew of Blackie being Joe and Frank's cousin. Tony smirked, Blackie could steal something and not get noticed at all of what she stole until well later, like that ruby incident. That was a fun filled week for the gang for sure.

"True" Tony replied as his sprite arrived, "Ah thank you." He said to the waiter who just nodded, hopefully the guys had the money to pay for this little venture. "So, now what ?" Tony said.

Joe watched as his brother left the railing heading for the elevator system and heading downwards to their level. "I think when Frank returns we can try and figure out our next step. It concerns home I know for sure. Maybe pick up Chet as well. Wait ssh!" Joe spotted someone else, Officer Kelly of the Bayport Police. Joe waved him over. And as Frank arrived so did Kelly.

"Officer Kelly, strange time that we see you here" Frank mused as he joined his brother and the others at table, he also pulled up another chair for Officer Kelly, the man looked tired, "Something up ?"

"Hello Boys, yes somethings up." Kelly replied. "Those new owners of the house across from yours might be in more trouble then first thought. They got ties to the government's agencies, the FBI came up with nothing, your father's on the case since this is now out of my hands. I'm working more on that missing person case in place of your father, he said you guys were looking into it as well."

Frank nodded, "We are, yes" He said, the case was baffling as it was so well setup. And if their new neighbors had ties to the government in some way, the fact they had such nice methods of transport and all were going to various events later on in the month. "We didn't find out much other then who the renters of the house were." Frank said.

Kelly corrected him, "They're not renters, they own the place now, there is something strange afoot in Bayport, and I want to know what is going on, I trust you guys can handle the case for me ? I have paperwork to file." The officer said. The boys nodded, the case was theirs. Kelly said his thanks and then left the table. He never said how he found them there of all places.

Frank's eyes then locked on Lake once more, she had spoken briefly to him, the woman had turned to the two men at her table and excused herself and headed somewhere, Frank watched her and ordered a root beer. Lake headed for the bathrooms apparently. He made a mental note to talk to her later.

A few minutes later and all the boys noticed the waiter leave the table where the woman once sat, what remained was a small bottle of Morgan Rum, and a glass of ice tea. It was small wonder how Toi could process the stuff. Now it was just the one man at the table.

Frank took notice first and spoke to his fellows, mostly to Tony, "What did you guys find ?" He asked.

"Well, other then the place is the typical gambling join complete with sports betting areas, billiards, the works. Not much other then they know their way around a deck of cards." Tony said first.

"They allow pets here, so Blackie can be of help to us too when we start to scout the place later." Joe said thoughtfully, that made Blackie perk up a bit. Though Joe had also requested some bacon for the feline so Blackie could at least get something out of the trip. "What makes me wonder is how Officer Kelly found us so quickly here."

"Might have been told to look out for us since we took to helping your dad on the case most likely" Biff said thoughtfully. That was a possible outcome for that.

"Could be" Joe said as the plate of bacon arrived, there was enough for all the boys if Blackie didn't hog it all. There were plates on the table in case the boys wanted a slice of the well cooked bacon, though Blackie was happy.. "Either way I want to try and get into that house at some point" A minute or so later Lake came back, finished her rum in a few quick sips and both Lake and Toi left, leaving a few dollars tip.

The guys -and cat- spent a few more minutes at the lounge of the casino before breaking table to leave and head back to the Hardy Home.


	3. A Visit from Fenton

_Project Bayport, Project One  
><em>_Chapter three; A Visit from Fenton_

Not everyone expected Fenton to take it upon himself to meet his neighbors, though he and his wife often did walk around their block and speak to their neighbors in the area, But these new neighbors were something of a curious group. That led Fenton into wanting to meet the new homeowner. After all he had ties to the government in some way. So why set up shop in Bayport of all towns ? Fenton had contacted Officer Kelly and gave him the missing person case, the leads Fenton had so far led to pretty good clues. But there was also his sons, Frank and Joe on the case with him as well.

At the present Fenton was in his study at the computer, looking up files using his government access code. One of those files was one named Emmett Brown, and found not much, only a teacher of computer and robotic science that once worked for the Federal Government and local contractors for military uses. Most of them radio controlled robots to find bombs and such.

Fenton did another search, this time typing in something truly off the wall even for him, 'Alien devices' A second later ten files were on his screen, thanks to his access code he managed to find a lot of weird things on there. Project Icegate was one of them, another was Project S.O.L.D.I.E.R. and the last one on the list was Project L.A.K.E. One. There were also references to Vegas as Mission City and weird robot experiments gone wrong. He opened the file marked Project L.A.K.E. One and read through a experimental project that was apparently a success.

His gaze was taken by two pictures, one apparently of the Project at its itial stages with vice president Dr Daniel Marks in charge of the project, then the second picture was of a woman dressed in scarlet seen in a publicity shoot for soldiers apparently a poster of some kind, the woman was clearly with light brown hair, deep hazel eyes, and dressed head to foot in scarlet red, the only thing that was a different color was the single jade green necklace at her neck. Even the woman's hair was covered in the red cloth, aside from four braids that framed her Asian face

A sound from outside drew his attention to the window, Fenton had seen the people across the street and their massive trucks, but was alarmed mostly about some other items going on. But what locked his gaze on the outside was the fact that there was a woman dressed in scarlet red, even her hair was covered in the red cloth. Things just got interesting. Very interesting.

* * *

><p>Toi pulled into the driveway of home, their hopefully temporary home for the moment and opened his door, Lake also stepped out once her door unlocked allowing her to open and get out of the Toyota. Lake never complained about any of the Autobots she had taken a ride to town inside of, they were all of them comfortable to heaven and back.<p>

Toi stepped around to the front bumper of the truck and reached into his vest pocket, pulled out the won money and handed it to the woman in red, "All of it is there I used some of the stuff we did not win as tip money for Ray, I need to talk to Doc." He said. Doc had somehow logged Raymond Epps into the work and security detail at the Waters Edge Casino and resort in Bayport. But just why he had done that made Toi confused.

"You think the Decepticons are taking the political way to get things done ?" Lake asked. It was not every day that things went good for once, they were not tailed back to their house, so that was indeed good.

"If they are then we're in trouble, they'd know about NEST already, they'd know about _you_" Toi said he didn't understand politics as much as the other 'Bots did. Not even Swallowtail cared much for them. Though the fact that the Mustang wanted to go offroading made Toi nervous, Lake as well. The other offroaders were expecting to see a mint condition mustang at some point

Lake sighed, "If they send their drones or Pretender Units after me I can take them on, you know that." It was several months to a year in Vegas that got her well up to speed on how exactly to take on a few dozen Decepticons and win. CR was very useful. Now if only they had more.

"Its not the Drones or Pretenders I'm worried about, I'm more concerned of the much larger 'Cons, like Hive or Molotov." Toi said the two of them went into the house.

"You worry to much, besides, we won a few games of luck, so for now we're on easy street. there's no cause for alarm yet." Lake said. She had no idea she was already a target, of both a background check and two other men at the same time.

"Yet" Toi repeated, Lake was right sometimes the scout did worry, but those times he had reason to do so. Though he said nothing more as he looked around the kitchen, Doc had Brains all hooked up, wireless transceiver was already installed, and a printer, along with a good sized TV screen on the wall showing _The Weather Channel._ Brains sat on the counter like normal. Not that they had need of a wireless transceiver with the laptop...

"All set up Doc." Lake asked the wild haired man who was in the kitchen, he had every plug taken by something, most of it not the every day appliance. Most of it hooked up to Brains needs.

"Mostly, everything that is weapons needs are downstairs, I'll let you explore the house later, for now, check what Brains printed off today in his findings." Doc said. He'd found out a LOT apparently.

Lake took hold of the top most piece of paper and read it aloud, "Police search for Missing Person ends in dead end at 2501 Thomas Street. Tip received led police to the empty house due to weird noises and lights in the basement windows, the doors were locked and no windows were touched." she looked up from the paper, "2501 Thomas Street... that's this house!"

Doc nodded, "There's more, a police man came to the house today while you and Toi were out, he didn't have a warrant but he was looking for that missing person and was hoping to get into the place. He said a tip from a friend as they are all labeled led him to our doorstep. Thinking one of us did the deed. We don't kidnap people" Doc said getting a bit agitated.

Lake was tempted to mention that she had been kidnapped once by Swallowtail and Kage, but said nothing, instead she continued to read the paper, finding more information in there about the case, each clue led nowhere for the local police. Then Brains spoke up, "There's more, turns out the local police force gave two young men named Frank and Joe the case, they live at 2619 Third street, that's across the street from here." Brains said.

Lake looked up, "Frank and Joe." She asked.

"Yup, the local police force had found no leads and they got somewhere in only a scant few hours." Brains said, "I printed off some more info on them. Its in the stack deeper." there was about 40 pages or so of paper that Brains printed off. Two pages were pictures of yearbook photos of Frank Hardy and his brother Joe.

Lake looked at the two pictures hard, and recognised Frank almost instantly. A low growl escaped her throat, "These two were at the Casino." Lake grumbled. "They must have tailed Toi and me there. Swallowtail said they came to the house this morning."

"Yup, that they did." Doc said, "Toi told me all about it" the Delorean owner said, "They were interested in his truck, I think otherwise. So be on guard, I'll be down-stairs, if anyone comes knocking, let Toi handle it or Ironhide. Doubtless some of the neighbors will want to visit to welcome us to the town or some such. Best to avoid as much contact with the townsfolk as possible." Doc then went to the basement,m he had most of his workplace set up, still had to set up the electronics needs, and he had to wait another two or three days before the cable guy could truly hook them up.

Lake then went and explored the backyard of the house, leaving Toi inside with Brains to install the curtains on the front windows. Which took a few minutes thanks to Swallowtail helping him.

As the two Autobots set up the living room to make it more human like Swallowtail and Toi spoke between themselves about what they found of the town. "I found the place I s full of suckers ready to make a fast pounce for money. In my case I learned the deck, even played a few rounds with Lake against a few others, we got exactly fifteen hundred dollars, Lake has it now I think."

Swallowtail snickered, "You played poker ? Careful you don't want to bet yourself out of parts." The Mustang replied, Toi snickered.

* * *

><p>Fenton paced within his study for a few minutes, the boys were on their way home and Blackie was with them, that was good. Mostly because Fenton was far more focused on the case at hand then anything else, since it was government related Fenton had instead focused more on trying to find out who the new people in town were and what they were after.<p>

It seemed to him that every new family in town had a mystery surrounding them in history somewhere. And these people were apparently not going to be just temp renters, these folks were planning long term residence by the look of the two trailers, two pickup trucks, a massive flatbed truck of some sort, and two smaller cars. Fenton was intrigued mostly by the reason for so many cars and trailers. But also mostly by the fact that one of those people were pictured also in a mission report on the web server he was searching on.

What surprised him the most was when he sat back down and did some more searching, a instant message window appeared, apparently someone wanted to contact him for something, the words on the screen were short and simple, they read "Hello Mr Hardy." It seemed a pleasant fellow on the other side, possible the guy that kept the records apparently by the way the words were typed onto his screen, "Is there something I may help you with ?"

Fenton smiled slightly, then typed a reply, "Yes, there is something you can help me with." He sat back and waited for a reply, it came almost an instant later.

"How may I be of service ?" The words typed. There was no name with the words as they were typed onto his screen. Though it was clear that Fenton was not the only person looking up Project L.A.K.E. and Project S.O.L.D.I.E.R. So if this guy knew about them, which the _being_ did, being so close to Lake herself and all.

Fenton thought a moment then typed out, "I am trying to find information on a Project L.A.K.E., several leads led here. So now I am looking into these reports."

A moment passed before Brains replied. "Anything particular that you require ?" The laptop loved being sneaky.

"Pictures" Fenton typed in. Seconds later a link was provided, directly to Brains picture folder, it had several pictures of Lake One in combat missions, and also a news paper article of a Water Project failure in a middle eastern city that left the city like Chernobyl., Fenton stared at several pictures for a minute then exited the file, he had committed them to memory.

When Fenton had exited his pictures folder after a bit, Brains then typed onto his screen, "Is there anything else I can help with Mr Hardy ?" How did he know his name ? Possibly by his IP look up.

"No, that is all, thank you" Fenton replied in his typing, the window then closed, on the other end Brains was snickering where he sat on the counter, he'd traced Fenton's IP, got everything except his credit card number, mostly his job as a detective, a private eye so to speak, a pretty down to earth one. Fenton exited the program and the computer desktop appeared. A nice sunset image was on the screen. Fenton stood up and went to the door. He had a visit to the neighbors it appeared.

Fenton went to the door and opened it, a moment or so later he stepped out of the house, He had with him nothing, aside from his weapon hidden in his suit jacket. If he had need of it. He first went to the mailbox, nothing yet, then he stepped across the road and headed for the house across the street from his own.

As Fenton got closer he saw the trucks in a better light, both of them were well kept, the Ford appeared old, like a 1980's model year, the GMC appeared far newer, yet both were in great shape and well kept. The color of the Ford was just plain ugly. And it hurt the eyes. That color p ink for a flat bed truck was just wrong. Though Fenton mused, it might have been a fitting tribute for a cause.

Fenton then noticed that there was two people near the garage at the DeLorean parked out in front of it, one of them a well built man the other a dark haired woman of Mexican decent. Both of them were working on something. But at Fenton's arrival the man left the woman and came closer.

"Can I help you ?" Ironhide asked. Ironhides Pretender Unit wore a brown tank top with black jeans, and had short cut dark hair, and bright green eyes, Pinky had dark gray jeans and a dark pink shirt with wild long black hair.

Fenton smiled and held out his hand, "Name's Fenton Hardy, Couldn't help but watch you two move in today, Wanted to come by and welcome you Bayport." He said

Ironhide shook his hand, "Nice to meet you" He said, He couldn't say his true name so he used a face one, "I'm John Iron, most of my friends and family call me Ironhide as a nickname." He said, he held out a hand towards Pinky as she came closer, "This is my wife. Maria" Ironhide said giving off the fake front they had to give around those unknown to them, though it was mostly true, Ironhide and Pinky had blended sparks only several months ago. So they actually were something of husband and wife.

"Pleasure to meet you both, I live across the street with my wife and two sons. We don't get many people who are interested in this part of town to move in." Fenton replied shaking Pinky's hand. Pinky unheard by anyone but Ironhide and the others sent a radio call.

{"Nosy neighbor, detective by look of him, keep Brains in laptop form and off government websites."} Pinky radioed, Doc and Toi both confirmed the transmission. The only problem was that Lake didn't hear it, she was too busy swimming.

Though Swallowtail stepped out the side door that led to the garage and thus, to Fenton and the other two Autobots. She spoke briefly in Mandarin to Ironhide, who replied in similar language before the Mustang spoke in English towards Fenton, "Oh hello, I did not know you made a new friend Ironhide." She said, using Ironhide's true name, the man snickered and introduced Fenton to Swallowtail.

"Mr Hardy, this is my cousin Swallow. Swallow, this is Mr Fenton Hardy, our neighbor, he lives across the street from us." Ironhide said. Swallowtail shook the man's hand, she thought she recognised something of Frank in him. Maybe the expression on the mans face as he studied her.

"Nice to meet you Mr Hardy." Swallowtail said. She took in everything about the man, every tiny detail. As she did so she multitasked very well and searched over her intraweb connection on the man, finding plenty about him, first class private eye, oh joy. Possibly there to scout them out. "Is there anything we can help you with ?" the tattooed woman asked.

Fenton caught himself staring and shook his head no, "I just wanted to meet the new neighbors Welcome to Bayport. I can see and also from what I heard at the breakfast table, that you guys have already entered in several events here in Bayport." Fenton said, he had heard from Frank mentions of the new neighbors entering in the offroading event that weekend and also entering in the martial arts and sword fighting compilations Though it was clear that Frank was curious to these fight styles these people knew, if they knew any.

"Well, thank you, we're still settling in and making the house livable right now." Swallowtail replied. In truth they were mostly set up, Lake still had to set up her living space, Swallowtail already had her and Toi's rooms done. Though Swallowtail was most likely going to spend the majority of her time in the garage. Not that the Mustang cared. "I'd take you inside to meet the others of the bunch, but they're all busy and the house is a mess" Which was mostly true, the house was a mess and they were busy in the basement with Doc's experiments in weapons.

"That is fine, I just wanted to stop by and say hello, no rush" Fenton said in reply. He turned to leave, "It was nice meeting you three" He said before leaving. The three Autobots watched the Detective leave.

As Fenton left Swallowtail spoke on the radio system, {"Alright guys coast is clear. Brains pull up everything you can on one Mr Fenton Hardy, his job, family, relatives, anything you can. Something tells me we might have unwanted eyes onto us already"}

{"Don't tell me its because Lake and I went gambling"} Toi said over the radio.

{"It might be"} Swallowtail replied. {"Were you followed ?"}

{"We were tailed on the way there, possibly watched while there too, we won a few rounds if you recall. "} Toi replied. He explained the pale green Jeep and four boys inside it. {"It is possible they were tailing us. Do any of them look familiar Queenie ?"} Queenie, that was Toi's pet name for Swallowtail, after all her car frame was a GT500 Queen of the Road, literally. He gave a video feed screen shot of the two Hardys and their friends Biff and Tony.

Swallowtail highlighted the two Hardys, {"These two visited us this morning, they spoke with me briefly. It is possible they wanted to see your truck in action. Brains, what have you got ?"} Without a word Swallowtail re-entered the house, Ironhide and Pinky followed.

Brains was snickering where he sat on the kitchen counter, "Some dick! Didn't even figure out who was talking to him online, showed him some of my pictures of Lake and yourself, Mustang" Brains said, "He was looking for recent shots, the most recent ones I have were five years ago, shortly after the Egypt battle" Swallowtail just looked at him and grumbled. At least Lake was safe, so far. Swallowtail gave him a look, Brains took pictures whenever he could of Lake. She didn't mind, as long as he kept the photos to himself alone.

* * *

><p>Lake cleanly knifed into the crystal clear water after removing her scarlet viel, and after that her jade pendant, setting both on the edge of the pool. For ten straight minutes she swam doing laps back and forth in the pool, it was perfect size for deep long swimming, almost the size of a professional sports pool. Deep too at almost five meters at its deepest point.<p>

She was too focused on swimming to notice the shifty creature with green eyes sneaking close to the pool edge and snatching up something, then sneaking off as if he wasn ever there. Logan Neuf was a thief, He was also a deadly soldier that reviled in theivery and worked to keep himself as rich as possible, Aside from standing orders to find and bring back Lake One alive, all other Soldiers had secondary orders to kill Neuf.

But Lake did not know about him. Nor did any of those within the house expect anything wrong until Swallowtail exited the house and went to the poolside as Lake pulled herself out. As Lake sat on the pool edge with her feet still in the water before standing up to get her things the Mustang asked. "Feel better ?"

"Much" Lake replied picking up her scarlet red viel from the poolside, then looking frantic she noticed something missing. "Have you seen my jade pendant." She asked her eyes scanning over everything carefully.

Swallowtail shook her head no. "What's wrong ? You took it off to swim ? Where did you set it ?" Lake pointed to where she had set her viel and her necklace. After a brief yet clear scan and search Swallowtail said. "Its gone."

Lake went into the house then rather sullen at the loss. Yet Swallowtail remained at the place, {"Brains, do a transcan of the last 15 minutes aroudn the pool edge. Including the time Lake was swimming, Send me everything you find"}

{"Right, Info comin' up!"} A few seconds passed and Swallowtail recived a digital wireframe map of playback. Showing everything she needed to know. Someone had indeed stolen Lake's jade necklace. {"Importance of the necklace ?"} Brains then asked.

{"Ask Lake, not me."} Came the answer.

Brains did so. But Lake didn't reply, so he guessed it was important. He reactivated his secure net linkup to Swallowtail, {"Strange reading located, energy level similar to Lake's own genetical makeup. Unlike anything I've encountered yet, aside from Two, three, five, six, and seven"} He said.

That meant trouble. {"What is it ? What am I looking at Brains ?"} Swallowtail asked as she moved from the pool edge to the edge of the property and looked beyond the fenceline

{"Another S.O.L.D.I.E.R."} Brains replied. The mecanichal growl that came over his radio made it clear, something was going on. That was the last thing that they had to deal with.

It was a few minutes before Swallowtail replied, {"Contact Simmons, Have him call me directly over my channel, I want to ask him something about secret military projects."}

{"Done and Done"} Brains replied. He went back to playing chess as Lake arrived in the kitchen, the woman looked either pissed off or just plain bored. It was impossible to tell with the beautiful Asian woman in scarlet. "Something on your mind Lake ?" Brains asked her

She looked at him for a moment before saying softly, "Yes." Her hazel eyes were focused on the TV showing the weather for the next three days.

"You want to talk about it ?" Brains asked. Watching his friend carefully.

Lake never shook her head, nore did she move to dry off, she stood watching the TV, dripping water to the floor. Soaking wet. "No" She finally replied softly.

"Something tells me you are not in a happy mood." It was then that Brains noticed it, "Where's your necklace ?"

It was then that Lake looked at the laptop, tears clearly seen in her eyes. "Gone, someone must have taken it. But who I do not know." Lake said, she turned her whole body towards him and set her hands at the edge of the counter, "Brains, do me a favor."

Brains perked up at the request, "yeah what do you need ? Where and how much ?" He asked, ready to do as requested

"Do a scan of the time I was swimming, a twenty minute timelapse. Backtrack from the moment Swallowtail left the house to see me at the pool. Backtrack exactly twenty minutes, then play it forwards slow motion for all motion at the pool edge." Lake said, She jerked a hand towards the TV, "Show it on the screen for me."

Brains nodded and started the playback in super slow motion, breaking downeverything carefully. "OK, playback after backtrack starting now to the point where Swallowtail went to see you." He said, five minutes passed according to the clock on the screen, then ten.

It was just past the elevent minute mark when the jade Necklace disappeared, yet traces of energy were left in its wake, "Pause it!" Lake hissed, she studied the strange trail of energy, "Zoom in, enhance, then give exploded view" She said. As she spoke the commands in that order the screen did as requested. Lake growled. "Crud"

"I take it that eenrgy signature is not good ?" Brains said. He had no idea how right on the money he was on that assessment.

"That is the energy signature of a creature from Project Soldier, One one of them were a born kleptomaniac," Lake grumbled as she stared at the reading, Brains watched her, "Logan Neuf. Number Nine. A frenchman. His top skill is stealth... and theivery" Lake hissed. She turned away from the TV screen "Kill feed, I'd like to see the Wather Channel now.' Lake said. Brains did as asked. But asked no more questions. As Lake left the room.

* * *

><p>Life was normal for the evening at the Hardy Home, nobody came to the Door, nobody tried to kill any of the boys on their outing to the Casino, and none of them knew of the missing jade pendant... yet. Tony and Biff were invited to dinner by Mrs Hardy, and both boys called home to let their parents know the info. When dinner was over and the dishes cleared, the four boys went to Joe's bedroom, Frank took a seat at the laptop against the wall on the floor, Biff started tossing paper wads through a hoop on the door. Tony was looking through his backpack for his ipod cord.<p>

Joe set Blackie on the windowsil before taking a seat on the bed. He opened a folder file his dad lent him, It was filled with arcitectural designs for the Waters Edge Casino. Including planes for some weird transport device that was actually the power distribution system for the building.

What alarmed most of the boys was the names involoved in the Casino's construction, A Mr Thomas Tov, and a Miss Amilia Shift. A retired police officer and head of security at Water's Edge.

"Its a weird power grid, but the internet set up is easier then I thought." Tony spoke up, "I was able to get the building layout and everything, even the powerlines directory" He said.

"That does not make sense, it says that the owners, Mr Thomas Tov, a Russian, is very secretive of his doing, inheriting the Casino when the original maker was killed in an auto accident." Frank said.

"So the guy that owns the place is not the guy that built it ?" Biff said

"Looks that way." Tony and Frank both said.

Joe noticed Blackie focused on the house across the street, "hey guys..." Joe said. Blackie was growling, the lights were on on the outside of the 2501 House, the Spooky House as some of the locals called it, weird noises and such.

Frank looked up, "Joe ?"

Joe pointed out the window, "I don't recall a medical hummer arriving" He said, Blackie continued to growl as she too watched the events across the street. A green and white medical hummer had arrived, and with it two men and a woman. The foursom piled out of the medical truck and into the house. The medical hummer driver also entering, an Arabian like fellow.

Frank noted everyone entering, they had the look of soldiers about them all. "They look like soldiers." He was right, they were soldiers. "Biff, the glasses" That way they could zoom in on things. See what they could, the curtains were open for the moment. Biff grabbed the binoculars and handed them to Frank.

After a minute of silence Frank said, "Turn off the lights" Joe hit the switch and the bedroom went dark. Now Frank was able ot see slightly better. "Looks like this is a group of soldiers, One of them look like the waiter we saw at the casino today" He said.

"Is that good or bad" Joe spoke up. If a soldier was also a waiter... "maybe he's just recently discharged and was looking for a job ?" He thought aloud. Tony nodded agreement, but Biff, though unseen in the darkness of the room was unsure.

"Possible" Frank said, "lights on" He said, the lights were put back on. Frank set the binoculars on the bedside table and sat on the floor, the curtains across the street had been cloed. "Well, that's that, unless we can sneak over there without being seen or heard, we can't find out anything from long range view."

"Well, looks like we can scout the Casino again tomorrow, for now I'm bushed, see you guys tomorrow." Tony said heading for the door, Joe followed to get the front door. Biff too left a few minutes later. That evening was eventful.

* * *

><p>Lennox paced, "You're sure I t was one of those Project Soldier wind up toys that stole your necklace ?" He asked to Lake, who was then dryer then before. But still damp from her swim.<p>

"Yes" Lake replied, "Logan Neuf was said to be a born kleptomaniac, and nothing was safe from him, anywhere." It was clear Lake was unhappy.

"Hey, it was me that found the energy signature on the playback recording, and Lake puzzled it together." Brains said, going to Lake's defense almost in a heartbeat, which startled everyone. "If more Soldiers are here, and one of them has Lake's necklace, that means trouble for us all because only Lake and Swallowtail can take on a Soldier., none of us others can take them on. We'd get killed before we took a step."

Lennox nodded, he remembered how Lake had to fight that caged match against a burly guy nearly six times her weight, able to take a beating. A hard enough beating at that. And still stand. "yes, Five was a fun fight to watch." He said.

Lake snickered, "Five was stupid, the soldeirs of Project S.O.L.D.I.E.R. had orders to find me alive, Project two, Sabre, said so herself." Though what had confused Lake was the fact that Sabre also helped her, and Project three was out of sight out of mind. "It was also said that all soldiers were to kill number Nine, Logan Nuef, the kleptomaniac. His top skill is stealth. Only Brains was able to detect his energy signature, and he has my necklace."

"Alright, then there's only one thing to do since we can't go public" Lennox said he turned to Brains "Brains, get on the horn and contact Morshower, see if he can get the files required, all soldeirs have a weakness, Five's weakness was his strength, and Lake figured it out of how ot beat him, he was slower then her. If this Neuf fellow has a skill of stealth, then something has to make him weaker."

"He;s not smart ?" Said Epps thoughtfully, Everyone including Brains, looked towards him, "I mean think about it, This guy stole Lake's necklace, not even a suicidal maniac would do that."

"Considering that Nine is quite suicidal, and can hide like the dickens, means a lot" Lake muttered, she sat down on a stool and buried her head in her hands. Today was just plain wrong.


	4. Casino Funhouse

_Project Bayport Project One  
><em>_Chapter four: Casino Funhouse_

The Day was just not ending well, barely a full day in Bayport and her necklace disappears. And Simmons was not answering his phone either. Unless he was busy elsewhere. Simmons was always short fused. But he was also helpful more then he knew. All they had to do now was focus on the things at hand, Project Soldier no doubt knew Lake was in Bayport, and Nuef the Kleptomaniac had her necklace. And he was a master when it came to stealth needs.

Lake had stolen her necklace back from Neuf twice before, and the first time was easier then the last time. So each time he stole the necklace, he hid it in a harder to to find place. And the last time was hung right over his bed. But this time it was hung simply in the office of a Decepticon named Molotov.

Molotov sat at his desk as the Soldier's smokey foglike appearance was stood at the desk holding out the jade necklace, "recognise this Alien ?" the french nasal voice asked Molotov.

Molotov nodded and in a thick Russian assent said "Yes, I recognise necklace you carry." Though what did this freak want ? Molotov rarely made deals with the incects. Though Hellfire insisted they work with them until they can make the proper move at the right time. "What do you want ?"

"Simple" the Frenchie replied "Protection, I bring you Lake, you protect me. Deal" Neuf hung the necklace on the corner of the desk. Downshift stood nearby watching everything. She did not like this guy one bit.

Molotov said nothing, but radioed to Downshift {"Should we take his deal with our own rules ?"} He barely noded to the woman who spoke up.

"You bring us Lake and we protect you, but try anything otherwise and you wont be safe from us either, Deal" Downshift said, fingering her pistol.

"Done." the Frenchie replied before turning to leave, leaving the necklace where it hung off the corner of Molotov's desk. A really hard to find place. But there was but one problem. Downshift recorded all of it. The frenchman left, Downshift moved over to where Molotov sat at the desk and leaned against it.

"You think he will keep to the agreement ?" She asked thoughtfully.

"If he does not, you can have your fun with him." Molotov replied. Though he seemed to know what the other 'Con was thinking. "You want Swallowtail for something, why ? Is it because she holds the Starsaber ?"

"I want to kill Headgame, it was his creation that killed my sister. Keep KB out of my sight and radar, even his cloaks were found useless when that DeLorean found him." Downshift said. She was still angered at the time she spent with the Autobots in Washington DC. That was an insane road trip for sure.

"I'll make a note of that, I do not think it is possible to find, muchless kill, that maniac." Molotov said. He stood from behind his desk, "Keep an eye on him, I'll talk to Hellfire and see what I can do about KB and keep him away from anything you have planned, try not to make a mess of things, The last thing we need is for the locals to be onto us" Molotov said.

Downshift stood up, eye level with the other 'Con, "Keep KB out of my way, and let me do as I like, No promises on damage control." She said before leaving the office after the Frenchman. She trailed the man to the casino floor, there were nobody present save for the staff doing basic checkdowns and otherwise to the floor and tables, making sure nothing was amiss. Logan Neuf went straight out the front door and hailed a taxi to the airport.

Downshift went to her cruiser, a plain cherry red color Dodge Challenger and took off after the taxi cab with the frenchman inside it. As she drove she did a intranet search. Lake was indeed in town, as were also Doc, Toi and sadly Ironhide with them all. Swallowtail was also in town. There was also some human trying to find someone else. Weird place earth was. Fun too.

The taxi entered the airport grounds and came to a halt, the frenchman stepped out and paid the driver then entered the building. At once he disappeared into the crowd. Downshift drove on. Well that was not much the hassel to try and find where the guy was going now was there.

As the red Dodge drove on a pair of pale blue eyes watched her leave, Sabre had just arrived and had also watched Neuf get out of the taxi. Her secondary mission orders were to hunt and destroy Project Nine, the only way to do that was to corner him, and he was an expert at stealth. Easily instantly, disappearing into the crowd. That was insane. Sabre went to a taxi and said to go downtown. Downshift never noticed the strange radar imagine that appeared of yet another soldier project member. Things were bad enough with just Lake to contend with, and since Lake had killed Sven with Swallowtails own sword, that caused a lot of anger in the 'Con to build to overflowing and caused a lot of collateral damage, something that even angered Hellfire.

* * *

><p>Lake paced inside the house, finally she said, "I'm going to find my necklace, Swallowtail, track anything made of jade, hopefully we can find a lot more of where it could be." Lake said. Swallowtail nodded and got to work. Lake turned to Lennox, "In the mean time, Epps is at work, at the Casino right now no doubt. You can head up there if you like."<p>

Lennox snickered, "I'm not much of a gambler but hey, I was in many battles with the Autobots against the Decepticons, so what is a Casino to me anyhow I gambled every day of my army life as it is." Lennox gambled daily with life and death, would he live or die, apparently he lived through every battle. That made things go crazy every day.

"Good, you can come with me then when I go to the Casino with Toi, need a way to pass the time anyhow." Lake replied as Swallowtail spoke up.

"There is only two Jade items, one of them is in the Casino, the other in is a meuseum of Natural History on the other side of town." the Mustang said.

"Trust Queenie to want to go to a history joint" Said Toi who entered from outside, he'd searched around the poolcarefully, only to enter and hear where the only two items of Jade were in Bayport. Wonderful.

"Who said I wanted to go to a history area ? I thought that was Que's thing ?" Swallowtail snakred back.

"Haha, when do we go and who goes where ?" Toi said speaking up.

Lake thought a few minutes then spoke up, "Doc and Toi can go to the mesusem and try to find the Jade there, Lennox, Swallowtail, Ironhide and I will go to the Casino, Pinky will remain here and keep watch with Brains, Wheelie should be here soon, if so, try and keep him in here with Brains and Frenzy, try and keep the house in one piece." Lake said.

Everyone nodded, It was time to go on a mission.

* * *

><p>Toi stepped out of his cab and looked up at the Mesuem of Natural History. Well this was as good a place as any to hide some Jade. He thought. "Doc what first, gain entry without paying or what ?" He said.<p>

"I scrambled the system into thinking we're staff just coming on duty. Give us enough time to get in and find the Jade, record it, then get out." Doc replied, he looked up at the facade of the building, "Why a jade necklace thief could be taken here is beyond me, possibly wanted ot see how much it was worth most likely."

"What about the Jade at the Casino ?" Toi asked.

"Its a possiblity that the jade there is but a jade buddha or some such, if that is the case we might be better off here then at the casino, trying to steal out of a Casino is far much harder to do then stealing from a place like this." Doc replied, the two men entered and clocked in, Doc mentioned later that the time on the clock in was set to change to a check in to get tickets time, they had tickets indeed. Now to look around.

Toi had a track of the Jade mark and headed for that floor, the top floor, minierals and rocks apparently, The two men walked through the place taking in all of the rocks and other items in the place before focusing on onem the jade was set apart of the frest of everything and looked alarmingly similar to Lakes own stolen necklace.

"Doc" Toi said softly, Doc arrived as Toi pointed at the case, the jade necklace had no traces of Lake on it, but it was alarmingly identical to Lakes necklace, "This looks like Lakes jade necklace, but it has no residue of Lake on it. This mgiht be a dead end." The Toyota said

"Most likely, for now we'll clock it and log its location. Lets wander a bit, we have time until we're required." Doc replied, the two men then started meandering around the place, taking in a few more items of note, some of them clearly pieces from the moon, one of them directly from the Ark that had landed up there. That was scary in itself.

Toi stood and stared, "Doc! Get a look at this!" He called, he highlighted the Ark metal, "The humans think this is a basic moon rock, its not, its right from the Ark, look at the residue signature there." Toi highlighted the Cybertronian metal. Toi also reached for the case.

Doc set a hand, "hold on a second." He said, he'd noticed another group of people wandering through. "We can't just up and take it unless Brains wants to totally analyse it." He said

"Any idea if he could find out what it is more then us ?" Toi asked as he looked at Doc.

"Knowing Brains, " Doc replied "he'd not only find out when it was made but also where it fell to Earth, who found it, and how long its been here." He said, Doc looked up briefly towards the other group, they were in another room. He spoke in a low voice quickley, "Fabricate another! Quick!" Doc placed a hand on the surface of the galss and rendered the sensor system helpless.

Toi did as instructed, an exact copy, made of all Cybertronian metals was recreated in his hand, "I hope you know what you're doing." Toi muttered

"I do too" Doc replied, He removed the glass with a flick of his fingers and removed the Cybertronian rock and replaced it with the other one made mostly of earth metals. "We got it." He said, replacing the glass seal as if it were never touched, same with the sensors around it. Toi placed it in a compartment in his stomach. They moved on again. Nobody saw anything amiss.

"Lets get this to Brains as quickly as we can. The more we find out about this the better." Doc said after a bit of wandering, he seemed more intent on finding out just how much the Humans knew of Cybertron. Optimus was not happy with Mearing about the unknown being told to them much much later after being said they were told all they knew. The two men then left the place, their sensors keeping them up to date on goings on before they left, no sensors were tripped, nothing was amiss. Nothing was wrong. DeLorean and pickup truck then left the area.

* * *

><p>"I still do not understand of what use I am here, Pinky is better at Casinos then I" Ironhide complained. He never got the point of the plan, search the Casino ? What for ?<p>

"Don't worry, I think Lake is planning something" Lennox said, he too was worried and confused. "Worst comes to worse and we have some big time trouble coming you can keep the bigger guys busy while we snag Lakes necklace." He said.

"Let us hope there are no Decepticons here and that this Soldier Project number Nine is our only worry" Ironhide replied. Not liking where this was going the closer the two cars, pickup truck and Mustang, and their two human ocupants, Lennox and Lake, got ever closer to the Casino and headed into the parking garage.

Lake stepped out of Swallowtail. "Alright here's the plan, you two do a wide sweep of everything, human and otherwise, Mark it on the wireframe system, once that is done bring it up in hologram so we can see it." Swallowtail nodded and on her hood appeared a floor plan of the Casino, showing two red blips, both of them marked as Decepticon. The names were unable to be located however, and one of them were moving towards the casino. Trouble was on the way.

"Alright Lennox, with me, you two, hide as best you can, if the Con incoming is a friend or enemy do not engage, we want to keep as low a profile as we can." Lake said, both truck and car grunted in agreement. Lake and Lennox dashed towards the door to enter the Casino. Easily pushing past the two guards set at the doors to keep out unwanteds until opening time. The look that Lennox gave both men kept them from following. Lake took the stairs to the playing floor and looked around. No office in sight, and even better, no prying Hardys. "This way" Lake said, directing Lennox towards the back stairways and they both heading upwards.

* * *

><p>Outside the casino a green jeep appeared, in it were three men, one of them chubby, the other two not so much, all of them pulled to a halt at the light outside the parking deck. But it was Frank that noticed the front grill of the car inside the casino parking deck that caught his attention. "Hey Joe, is that the mustang from across the street ?" He pointed at the front grill of the GT500, next to it a massive black pickup truck.<p>

Joe turned and gazed briefly at it, "looks it. Why ?" he said, gears started to turn. "You think our neighbor is here again ? But they're not even open yet."

"The resturant is" Chet spoke up, that made both Hardys chuckle. Chet was known for his eating habits.

"Lets check it out" Joe said. He said, normally not one to pass of a chance to get a look at the neighbors car. But this was too much to try and pass up. They were already in the turn lane. But what they were not expecting to see was the cherry red Dodge Challenger fly around the corner and cruise right into the parking garage without hitting any speed bumps or cracks in the cement. "Whoa, did you get a look at the driver ?"

Frank nodded, "yep, young black haired Asian woman apparently, the driver is skilled enough to miss any bumps in the road. Amazing. Lets go, light's green" Frank said, Joe hit the gas and pulled the green jeep into the parking garage. But the red dodge had disappeared into the darkness of the parking garage.

The Jeep parked not far from the black pickup truck and Mustang. The three inside stepped out. Frank stared at the massive black truck. "Who can afford the gas for that thing ?" He asked aloud, most trucks he'd seen of that size were industrial used, not residental. None of the boys saw the driver to the truck anywhere. So they stepped closer and halted at the Mustang, it appeared to be siting on its frame the tires and struts seeming to sag and hug the ground.

In truth Swallowtail was actually tired, and trying to take a rest, and as such she naturally sank as close to the ground as she could, literally making the car undrivable. However she perked up briefly at the sounds of the three boys and at the comm prod from Ironhide. The mustang made no moves to get on her struts.

Joe stared, Chet's stomach growled and Frank spoke first, "That truck was across the street with the horse trailer. I'd recognise it anywhere."

"Sure, its far bigger then the Toyota. That's for sure." Joe said, mostly in awe as he walked to the driver side of the clearly Asian made mustang and looked in, clearly a sixties model year. "This car is absolutely amazing, must be one of those low rider models, How the hell did the owner get through the gate to this parking garage, they'd have torn out the bottom trying to get over that speed bump."

"No idea, lets go inside, I got a phone call to make, and Chet's starving" Frank said. Niether of the two Autobots made a move, or sound as the three men left to go into the bar.

As soon as the the young men left Swallowtail got up on her struts and sat high as possible. "What do you think they wanted ?" She asked to Ironhide over her radio.

"No idea, the dark haried one seemed most interested in you." Ironhide snickered in reply.

"If you think I'm gonna let him drive me, you're crazy! Lake rarely even lets Lennox drive." Swallowtail replied Ironhide just snickered.

"Downshift is back. She went somewhere up top. Do you want to head up and see her, or stay here with me and keep watch at the gate ?" Ironhide said thoughtfully.

"I'll stay here, last time I saw my sister one on one it did not turn out well." Swallowtail said, in truth it turned out better then planned originally because Swallowtail now possessed the Star Saber that once belonged to Nexus Prime.

Ironhide snickered again, "You mean that sword you got was not a good thing to have happen to you ?" He asked thoughtfully. In truth he was jealous of his much smaller friend. After all, she had the Star Saber. Swallowtail did not reply, she had gone back to sleep.

* * *

><p>Lake opened a door quietly and looked out briefly, she had left her face for the moment seen as she stole a quick glance out into the hallway, the wireframe map said the necklace was up there, on that hallway. Somewhere. She ducked back into the stairwell and covered her face with the red cloth that covered her hair. All that was seen were her eyes.<p>

She turned to Lennox, "Here's the plan, you keep watch, I can smell my necklace nearby, If anything goes wrong give me a beep on my radio. I'll take it from there, once you give me the beep of trouble, get back to Ironhide and Swallowtail."

Lennox nodded, "With or without Epps ?" He said

"Preferably without, hopefully the trouble wont be him." Lake replied. She snuck into the hallway and entered the first door, marked as Managers Office.

Lennox watched her disappear behind the closed door, then noticed his Energon detector go off. The watch sized device was helpful, mostly in the sense of decerning human life from machine life. There were two Decepticons on that floor, one of them in the office area, he beeped his radio, then bugged out fast.

As he left the door oppisit the stairs opened and outstepped Molotov, the Russian appearing Decepticon with cold grey eyes smirked. Two security guards stepped out of the office with him. The smirk got wider. He motioned the two men to his office.

Lake heard first the door click shut and automatically lock behind her, damnit! Her eyes locked then on her necklace hangong off the corner of the desk near the window, ten floors up. Ironhide was about half that hight. Maybe floor five at the tallest. She thought. She moved around the room, there were two doors, she smelled jade thick in the air. She moved swiftly to the second door and peeked in. Seeing what she sought on the desk, hanging off one corner.

Without a sound she tested the door to see if it was unlocked, it was. She entered quiet as a cat and closed the door behind her gently and quietly. There were two large windows at the wall that look out of the street, and a parking garage.

She went to the desk and snatched up the necklace, She had it in one piece, she looked it over carefully, yes, it was her necklace alright. She put it on then sneaked back to the first ofifce, the door was locked that lead to the hallway.

Lake halted in the middle of the outer office as the door handle started to turn. Her hand reaching without intending to for the pendant around her neck. Damn Nine, why did he had to appear after so long ! She hissed slightly. The only way out was to hide in the other office. And hiding from a 'Con was impossible. Lake backtracked quickly into the other office. Thinknig of a way out. Only one exit route was safe, and it was blocked, so that meant to run for it and fast.

She closed the door behind her just as two men in guard uniforms entered the outer office. She listed carefully to the words said on the other side of the door as the two men entered, "Careful Epps, the womans a killer."

"Right Mack, check the fire escape. I'll take the other office. Mr Tov said to make sure everything was in one piece." The guards split up, one going to the oside where the fireescape was, nobody there. The other went to theo ffice Lake was hiding behind the door of.

Lake hid behind the door as it opened. The Epps looked in, everything appeared OK. Wait, something was missing. He took a harder look at everything in the room, Wasn't there a necklace of some sort hanging on the desk ? Where had it gone ? Epps spotted Lake, and knowing her skill she mouthed 'Sorry' He nodded slightly.

WHACK, Epps hit the floor, Lake took off, the doors were both open. The second guard saw her bolting to the hallway. "Hey! Gate Guards lockdown, lockdown now, we have an intruder fleeing Mr Tov's office on floor ten. I want everything locked down now!"

Lake overheard the orders over the radio. This was nuts.

* * *

><p>Outside the Casino the parking lot dropdown gate lowered. Swallowtail noticed that and on her comms she contacted Lake, {"We got trouble"}<p>

"_What._" Lake asked, she sounded out of breath, truth was Lake was running to a door and ramming it open, diving through it and just barely missing getting seen by a guard on the nineth floor.

{"They're locking down everything, and its not just us."} Swallowtail replied. Giving a detailed readout of what was going on. {"The only way out is through the back. Where's Epps ?"}

"_Sadly knocked out._" Came the reply, Epps was on guard detail that day. He could shift between the two duties pretty smoothly. "_No worries, Epps didn't want to fight, so knocked out works better than a broken arm._"

{"true, I am merely surprised he let you whack him"} Swallowtail replied. It didn't matter then though {"OK, according to the wirefram map there is a truck about ot pull out of the backlot. If you can get onto the trailer, you and Lennox, 'Hide and I can follow."} Swallowtail said.

"_Great good_" Lake said jumping a span of stairs to get to a lower level. "_What direction, X/Y axis please_" Lake said.

{"North from where you currently are, take the next door and take a hard right. But be careful, there are three civilians coming up those stairs to the third floor."} Swallowtail replied. {"They also are the sons of Fenton Hardy, the guy across the street from home."}

"_Good to know, anything from Simmons._" Lake asked.

{"Only that he is coming, nothing more of when he'll get here"} Swallowtail replied. That was good news. Very good news.

"_Alright, Looking for Lennox, You two get out of that parking garage, break out if you have to, but keep it as subtle as you can. Do not attract attention if you can help it_" Lake said.

{"Copy that, See you outside"} Swallowtail cut the link, with a simple honk of the horn, Ironhide rumbled into gear and moved forwards, heading for the now locked entry gate; Two guards tried to stop the massive GMC Sierra 6500 TopKick truck, but had to dive out of Ironhide's path as the massive rig roared through the gate with a resounding crash. 'Hide never was one for subtly, Swallowtail mused thoughtfully as she too started up her motor and followed after. The green Jeep was l eft parked in its spot. Hopefully the young man that owned it could get it out of there pretty smoothly.

The two Autobots left the parking garage and hung a left, then another left. Disappearing into an alley that led behind the Casino.

* * *

><p>Lake jumped a ledge and rolled onto the lower floor and got to her feet, Two guards spotted her and attempted to stop her only to get knocked out of the way, one of them knocking himself out on the nearby Dt. Coke machine as Lake tore past. Jumping a rail to a lower part of the third floor six guards came at her, all of them artial arts. Lake jumped and kicked out at the first two, sending them flying, another tried to hit her with a chair, which she blocked and wrenched from his grasp then sat upon leaning back to the floor then kicking the chair outwards. Hitting the guard in the legs, sending him to the floor in a heap. Lake then kicked herself under a table and kicked out two of the legs of the thing, sending it onto its side at an angle.<p>

Three guards down, three to go, plus the guy on his radio.

Lake rolled ot her feet and jumped over a table. Kicking backwards Lake struck a guard in the chest and sent him flying. Epps came flying down the stairs from the upper floors. Watching everything. Even though he didn't want to get hurt himself, the other guards were better skilled. Epps knew for a fact that fighting Lake in combat without a weapon was suicide.

Four guards down, two to go.

Lake headed for the only door out of that poker lounge, driving for it she rolled at the last second to avoid getting hit by the flying chair that was swung her way as she ran for the door out. Being on the third floor of the ten floor casino made for a bit harder of things. The second floor looked out over the first floor. The third floor was the ceiling for the second and first floors.

Lake's plan was simple, head for the second floor, then to the back. However, with all the guards, heading to the front, thinking that was where she was headed, made it easier. Slightly so. Lake headed for the stairs, she heard yelling in one of the poker lounges as she passed one of the open doors. She snickered to herself when she heard one of the guards yelling "She's headed for the elevators, cut her off!"

Lake took a hard left and collided with a guard, sending the man to the ground as she rolled over him and cartwheeled to her feet. Lake kept running. The guards clamored around a few seconds before giving chase. Lake headed right for a plateglass window and blasted through it.

Outside in the back of the Casino a truck was starting to pull away, after unloading the food supplies it was time to go get a reload to continue to stock up the food at the casino. IT got ot be a daily thing for the driver, who did not notice the shattering glass not did he notice the person, followed by a guard, who had to be suicidal to begin with. However Epps was not as crazy as Lennox.

Lake hit the trailer roof top, Lennox right behind. However by the time Lennox hit the trailer top the truck was moving, causing both Lake and Lennox to roll and grab onto the edge and dangle off the back of the truck, which sadly was taking backroads and keeping out of the main drag of the city.

This was both good and bad, good because nobody was going to paninac and try and stop the trucker, and bad because the trucker was starting to speed up and the road as not in perfect condition. Lake would have preffered the highway itself, or even the maindrag. But then, beggers were not choosers.

The good news was, Swallowtail and 'Hide were right behind the truck. Swallowtail almost touching the trucks rear bumber system of the trailer. Hopefully if either human hanging onto the truck were to fall off, they'd land on the Mustang's hood. And that was the only good news since most of the road was falling apart, the better news was they went by the house, so they'd manage to hold on that long, then fall onto Swallowtail, then they'd be OK.

Lake held onto the roof of the box trailer, Lennox right next to her. "How you holding up." Lake asked.

"Not bad" Lennox said looking up briefly to the roof of the trailer that he hung onto. Lake had turned herself around, her feet mostly on Swallowtails hood. "What in the world are you doing ?" Lennox yelled over the din of the wheels.

"Riding along like you are." Lake replied just as loud. Swallowtail chirped something and had to slow down briefly, almost to the moving ground, Lake hung onto the roof edge as much as she was able. This day was just getting more fun.

"You got what you went for ?" Lennox asked. Lake nodded, though she never did ask to be made roadkill.

"Yes!" lake yelled over the wheels on the road as the roar of Swallowtails engine was heard as the Mustang got closer, She reached a hand to her necklace and touched it, Lennox saw it clearly. "We're clear, the Casino is owned by a Decepticon of some sort I think, Epps is on the guard detail. Toi and I saw him yesterday too. But as a waiter!"

"Well that's good" Lennox replied, now wishing he was in the mustang rather than hanging onto the truck the Mustang was trailing for dear life.


	5. Simmons vs Fenton Hardy part one

_Project Bayport Project One  
><em>_Chapter five: Sector Seven vs Fenton Hardy {part one}_

Nobody really did like the former Sector Seven agent now Sector Seven Directive Agent, and Simmons knew the Autobots liked him even less for how he treated Sam and Mikaela tweleve years before. But it didn't matter now. Sam and Mik were engaged to be married and strangely had invited both Simmons, his niece Nacy White, and Dutch and Dutch's girlfriend India to the wedding. Even invting Lake and all the Autobots as well. Sam even said that the invitation still stood nomatter what happened. Ironhide was looking forwards to it himself.

But now Simmons was on his way, with Dutch, to Bayport, after speaking with Brains over the phone with Dutch making a map of directions in a strange code only he and Simmons knew, the pair were off to Bayport. Simmons in the backseat on his laptop, ever since Que had also returned and been living with Simmons and Dutch, it allowed both men to focus on their given tasks. Dutch however merely acted as if he were driving, letting Que do the rest on his own.

Simmons as a result had a full internet hookup from anywhere in the world, even the middle of the burmuda triangle for all the Agent cared. "Let me see if I can get this right" Simmons said. "Lake is the first project made that was successful, after the success of her in combat, more were made. How many ?" Simmons, with Que's help, mananged to crack into a database location and dug into the information. "Bingo." He said. "Dutch!"

"Yeah ?" Dutch called out, writing down all sorts of notes. Keeping track of everything, Dutch was not just German, but insanely well skilled at doing several things at once.

"How far to Bayport ?"

"Just inside the city limits now sir. Should be picking up some Energon signatures soon." Dutch replied.

"Dutch is correct," Que said in his typical sound, though coming from the speakers of the car. "I am picking up five Energon signatures that are currently close, not too far away, two more are closer to us and getting ever closer, making it seven in total that we know as Autobots, the rest I am picking up is three Decepticon signals, but they are faint. More towards town"

"Decepticons ?" Simmons and Dutch both said.

"Relax, The 'Con signals are weak. One of them is known to me, the others are not, Downshift is here as well, somewhere in the town itself" Que said calmly. As if stating a fact.

Simmons forced himself to calm down. Well that was good. "Alright, head us towards Lake's Pla- what the hell!" Que had pulled up to a red light, a semi rumbled past, Right behind it was a massive TopKick truck, and in front of the topkick a smaller Mustang with strange alien tattoos all over it. Simmons recognised the two people though hanging onto the back of the truck. "Que, follow those Autobots!"

"Right, best hold on." Que said, flooring the gas and taking off after the others.

* * *

><p>Lake, while looking backwards noticed what looked like a War Ministers car. A dark blue Mercedes was driving like a maniac to catch up to the pickup and Mustang forms of Ironhide and Swallowtail. She turned towards Lennox, "Can you arc yourself right to roll once letting go of this truck. We're almost home anyhow!"<p>

"What ?" Lennox yelled. "Say it louder! I can't hear you!" Lake repeated what she had said, but louder. He nodded "I think so, you think Swallowtail can catch us before we hit the pavement ?"

"Worse that can happen we get injured, Swallowtail and 'Hide have good skills when it come to driving like idiots." Lake replied. Or Sunday drivers Lennox mused, but said nothing on it. "We arc in three!" Lake called. Lennox nodded, Lake counted out the numbers. On three they both dove off the truck, literally, Lennox backflipped off the trailer and Lake swandove off it. That left two people to go after without harming either one. Swallowtail dove after Lennox, her engine thundering, 'Hide dove for Lake, catching her easily in his slewing bed portion.

Lake hit the steel bed frame of Ironhide and rolled, whacking her head into the back of the cab, with a solid thumping noise she came to a stop, thankfully no blood. Nor was there anything of fuzzy vision either.

Lennox landed on Swallowtail's hood, thanks to the quick driving reactions of the Mustang Autobot, Lennox managed to roll off the hood of the car to the passenger side, the door had opened smoothly allowing Lennox to literally slide right into the car's passenger seat without so much as a blink. Safely belted in Lennox breathed deeply and then finally spoke as Swallowtail hit the brakes and spun a one eighty. "Whoa." Nothing more had to be said.

'Hide also hit the brakes, but then pulled forwards a little bit when he recognised Que. {"Que ?"}

{"In the metal"} Came the reply. {"Simmons and Dutch are with me too"}

{"That explains why the phones do not work."} Swallowtail commented. The Mustang admired Que for his maniac weapons, he was scary, well, less scary then Impact, but still.

Lake climbed out of 'Hides bed portion and staggered to the rear seat of the front cab of the pickup truck. "I think I need a rest." She said, "You not mind 'Hide." Lake asked, 'Hide vibrated slightly and opened the door to the rear bench on his own

"Get in, Lake, you deserve it. We got things to plan now I think." 'Hide said.

{"And a guy to meet, come on, we're almost home as it is, I'll lead the way"} Swallowtail said, Lennox hadn't said anything other then trying to get his heartrate under control. The man was still in a rush after that tailgating party on the semi. Ten minutes later and the team was at the house, though joined by Que, the pretender Unit stepped out of the passenger side seat as Dutch was seated in the driverseat. Que was a good 'Bot when it came to weapons, and even more when it came to advice.

At the moment however, Que was busy inspecting the house for what it was worth. "Pretty nice place here. Hey Doc, You around ?" Que called. A voice called out simply.

"Down here! I'll be right up!" A minute later and they were all in the kitchen.

"So, you got in, got your necklace, and had to fight your way out, then tailgated a ride home ?" Doc asked. Toi was once more reading the news paper with a mug of Energon, high grade stuff, in one hand. Brains and Wheelie were nearby.

"Way to go Warrior Empress!" Wheelie called out, he and Brains had watched everything on the CCTV camera system of the casino, at the same time Brains had found the owner of the place as well, A Decepticon named Molotov. Known commonly by the humans that worked for him as Mr Tov. A Russian. The the Autobots knew better, There were two Decepticons in Bayport. Molotov and Downshift. And there was one that visited at times when required, apparently to check on things, Hellfire was the makeshift leader with Megatron gone for good. And Starscream hiding a lot of the time, it made sense.

Simmons was seated at the table, a cup of coffee sat before him, another sat in front of Dutch, a cup of Pesi sat before Lennox, the last, a small mug of rum, sat before Lake. The only Humans in the bunch, surrounded by Aliens of a unique nature. "So you're saying there are two Decepticons so far in Bayport ?" Dutch said.

"Not just 'Cons in the place, some more of the military toys are in town too." Lennox said, he let Swallowtail explaine the events, Lake's necklace going missing, then finding another exact match to it in the local history meuseum. To which Toi said they found a piece of the Ark in the same room. The people thought it a simple rock from the Moon.

"Well" Simmons said, he tapped on the table, Brains had brought up some asked for information on one Fenton Hardy, "I think I should pay a visit to this Fenton Hardy." He stood up, "I'll walk. The house is directly across the road, and we don't have a S-Seven SUV, Que could act as my driver to get over there to make it offical, So if you can move the car over there I do not mind." He moved to the door and grabbed his coat off the hanger, sliding his sunglasses onto his face he said with a strong point of deadpan. "Tell Project S.O.L.D.I.E.R. ... Lets Tango." With that he left the house to go across the street. Que went with him, Simmons wnded up getting into the back seat of the car as Que stepped into the driverseat. The two headed for the Hardy Home.

* * *

><p>By that time Frank, Joe and Chet had returned to the Hardy Home and had started looking through the files in Fentons study. Frank was seated at the computer, Joe was shifting through a file cabnit and Chet was seated on the easy chair, the second of the two such chairs in the room, sipping at a Dt. Coke, Fenton sat in the other, trying to piece together something.<p>

"What I do not get is how you got someone to talk to you over Instant Messenger" Frank said, trying to duplicate the same exact conversation his father had done with apparently a staff member of the Pentagon Records Department.

"What is most strange" Fenton said, stroking his niece Blackie's fur coat where she sat in his lap purring softly. "Is that I was contacted first shortly after looking up one called 'Lake One'. Try searching up on that. See if you can get contacted." It was possible that someone or some major group was keeping track of visitors to the file or site in general. So if Fenton was contacted briefly over visiting the site. Frank nodded and looked up the file, finding only scant pictures.

"What exactly did you ask the person for, other than access to the file itself ?" Frank asked.

"I was looking for pictures, trying to place where I had seen the woman across the street, she was in the news a few times. Recently in some sort of major battle in Los Angeles" Fenton replied. Frank did a pictures search, only the three pictures showing an offical battle report document of a Project testing site being expertly dismantled.

Seconds later an IM window opened, "Good Afternoon Mr Hardy." Apparently on the other end was a German looking fellow, thus giving what Frank figured was a german accent to the guy on the other end. "Is there something I may help you with again ?" Brains loved it when he played mind games with humans, this human he found himself liking more and more.

It was then that Simmons got off his phone as Que made a show of pulling into view of the front door of the Hardy Home and stopping, Simmons was nodding, Someone was indeed home. And hopefully Simmons could enter. He took out his Sector Seven badge and made sure it was ready for use. Que nodded and stepped out of the riverside o f the car, then stepped to the backdoor, opening it swiftly and silently allowing Simmons to get out. "Have Brains keep whoever is on the computer looking up our darling Mustang Driver busy as long as possible, I'm going ot try and get some information from Mr Hardy. Also have brains access the computer's webcam, if it has one." Que nodded.

* * *

><p>Simmons went to the door, making a show to take in everything, even the mailbox, memorising the number carefully before going to the door, the mailslot at eye level. He rang the bell several times. Looking into the mailslot.<p>

Fenton heard the door and stood up, setting Blackie on the file cabnit. "I'll see who it is, hopefully just a salesman of some sort." He said leaving the study. Fenton went to the front door and opened the mailslot. Seeing Simmons angery looking eyes, a second later the door opened and Fenton stood there. "Can I help you ?"

"Fenton Harding ?" Simmons said, missaying his name on purpose.

"It's Hardy, and yes I am Fenton, What can I do for you ?" Fenton said, sightly annoyed at how Simmons beat up his family name.

Simmons removed his badge and held it out. "Directive Agent Simmons, Sector Seven" He said.

"Never heard of it" Fenton replied. Sector Seven, what was that ? He knew the name of Simmons from somewhere, however.

"Never will." Simmons replaced his badge somewhere in his jacket. He took a step forwards, "May I enter the premises, Sir" Simmons gave a pointed look to Fenton, who stepped aside. "My aids informed me of some files and pictures being accessed from this location concerning a Sector Seven Operative, the files being accessed from this location concerning a classified Project." Simmons said.

Truth be told the Water Project was declassified as a military training excersise that went bad and ended several soldier's lives. In truth it was Lake who went and destroyed a town on her own.

Fenton lead Simmons to the living room of the house, the home was one floor, similar in design to Doc's place across the street. Fenton spoke as he sat down, motioning for Simmons to take a seat, Simmons remained standing. "I admit, It was me that accessed a file out of curiocity upon meeting the nighbors across the street, the woman appeared familiar to me and I couldn't quite place her. I did some searching and found the battle report." Fenton said truthfully.

Simmons nodded, "That much is true, but you also accessed pictures of Colonel One and our records show you had printed off a few of the pictures, correct" Simmons said finally taking his seat across from Fenton. The longer he kept the man talking, the better, but Fenton was good at evading questions, however, S-Seven outranked the Private Eye and allowed Simmons to ask some rather important questions.

Simmons iPhone buzzed briefly. He checked it. 'Brains is speaking to a younger Mr Hardy, another two men are in the room, Swallowtail recognises both men clearly, along with the feline in the room. They do not know the webcam is activated. ~ Toi' Simmons sent a fast reply, 'Keep the boy talking, find out what he knows. ~ Simmons' Simmons then slid his phone into his pocket. "Sorry about that, had a matter pertaining to one of my aids getting into a car accident." He lied. He hated the lies, but it did the job. They all had a grain of truth to them, mostly in the sense of 'its really deadly stuff, don't mess with it!' kinda thing.

Simmon's looked hard at Fenton, so the man was not alone, and the two guys in the computer room had already meet the darling Mustang herself already. Though the mention of a cat... Simmons spoke, "So, Not only did you find the battle report but also spoke to one of the many aids over the intigrated Chat system we have on the site for live chatting with staff on duty. It was revealed through the records that access was granted to view pictures, but somehow you printed off a few. Why is that ? Are you some kind of detective or something ?" Simmons knew for a fact that he outranked Fenton, though he was a guest in the Hardy Home for the moment.

Fenton nodded "I am private detective, I've worked with the Secret Service on several occasions. My sons help in the cases as well. They're majoring in law and criminal activities. Sponsored by the Bayport Police Department to help young men become better Towns-members" Fenton said, in truth his sons were the original pair to start the program at the police station.

Simmons nodded and stood up, "May I meet your sons, Sir" Simmons asked, giving Fenton a pointed look. Fenton stood up. A stern look on his face.

"Who do you think you are ? Barging into my home like this to see my sons ?" He asked, a calm yet stern look on his face.

"I told you, I'm Directive Agent Simmons of Sector Seven, I answer directly to the President of the United States, which means I outrank you. You accessed above top secret files on one of our operatives. And from what things look like right now, you're having your kids do it. This is worse than dealing with Whitwickity" Simmons muttered. Though he found himelf liking Sam more and more, More than once Sam came close to blowing it, but Simmons never gave in to failure and Sam had always came through.

Fenton backed up a step. Simmons looked ready to blow a gasket as he continued speaking. "So, if you want to keep poking your nose into the intricate workings of National Security, that's your funeral. If you want to stay alive, keep your nose out of things that do not concern you."

"Or what ? Harm to my family ?" Fenton retorted just as strongly. Simmons didn't back down an inch. "Jail time for me, what ? What could be worse than almost losing my sons to a car bomb in Jamacia ?"

Simmons had the slightest hint of a smirk on his face. He now remembered Hardy and his kids, That was not a car bomb either. To him, the Hardy's were a thorn in his butt, and he wanted them out of his skin, literally. "That wasn't a car bomb. Now get your kids out here so I can explain that little detail to you. Or do you want me to search the place for them ?"

Fenton was starting also to recognise Simmons, The man was at the time back then the Executive Director, not Directive Agent, Directive Agent was the literal top rank of S-Seven. When Fenton first met Simmons Simmons was more of a Executive Agent, which was an S-Seven Agent with pretty much ten years of experience in one week. However, Project Iceman broke that and gave Simmons a day long introductary coruse in alien life. Riding in Bumblebee proved that alone. And to be honest, Que was quiet comfortable. But Fenton had no idea what he was getting into. "Frank, Joe, bring Chet and Blackie, we have a guest that wants to meet you!"

* * *

><p>When his father left to go see who was at the door Joe took in what kind of car was outside, "Hey, that looks like one heck of a Mercedes, looks new." He said. Chet even looked. It was parked not far from the end opf the drive way to the Hardy Home, in front of the mailbox, near the front walkway. The man at the door had light colored hair and wore a dark suit. His eyes were ice blue.<p>

"Nice digs" Chet commented seeing the suit the man wore, he liked the look of it, though the man himself looked more like a heavyweight champion than a secret agents driver. However that was far from the truth. Que was niether one nor the other, though he acted it rather well.

Frank was more focused on the computer screen, typing out a reply to the question he was asked, merely saying "Nothing at the moment, I was trying to compare age differences between two pictures, and have lost the second one." Frank typed

"One moment" Came the reply. A few seconds later a folder appeared, and words typed "Please open the folder and select the photograph you wished to compare to another." Frank did so. Dozens of pictures, a lot of them recent, but none of them the same save for one thing, The woman in each picture was the exact same, however at times she was joined by another woman, a twin so to speak. Frank selected one that had both women in it with two other people and the fax and picture viewer opened.

In the picture was Lake, on the left of the screen, and Swallowtail, tattoos and all, in the middle, with the two were another woman, clearly Mexican appearing, and a larger male with pale blue eyes and light brown shortly cut hair next to the Mexican appearing woman. Frank stared at the picture a few minutes, commiting it to memory. It was then the IM window beeped and a message appeared. "Is something the matter Mr Hardy ?" Apparently the person on the other end figured the person on the computer was his father, Fenton.

All four in the study heard the yelling out in the living room, but had no idea what the two men were talking about. Prefering not to get involoved in the goings on out in the other room, Frank exited the picture once he printed it. He noticed three other pictures of the woman in red, and one of both women together in the printer tray.

Frank stood up and picked up the picture of Lake on her own, she was in a pool, swimming, her hair a strange mix of fire red with black streaks and blotches every-where, making it appear as if on fire. Though there was no mistaking that scarlet red outfit the woman wore. No mistaking it at all. Frank picked up the other pictures and looked at them. Another shot had Lake, her hair stained apparently black from something, sitting against a car door of some sort, from the bodystyle Frank guessed a wild card and thought a Pontiac Solstice. He was wrong.

By then the damage was done, Brains had activated the webcam on the hardy computer and took a good look at those within the room, three men, and a cat. Two of them Swallowtail recognised instantly. Thankfully the webcam speakers were not activated at the time.

Frank looked at the last picture of Lake on her own, sound asleep, apparently in the trunk of a car. Sound asleep. Frank looked up when he heard his father call out for him and his brother, and to bring Chet and their cousin with them. A guest wanted to meet them. By the time Frank looked back at the computer screen, the instant messege window had disappeared. Frank had battled wits with a laptop from another planet. He'd never asnwered the question Brains had asked over the IM system. "Lets go see what dad wants. Joe, you carry Blackie."

The three boys and one cat left the study, Frank shutting the door behind him. The boys headed to the living room. They saw a man talking ottheir father, Simmons was still standing, Fenton had sat back on the sofa. Frank carried a stack of papers, mostly notes, some pictures, and other stuff. He set them on the coffee table. The top sheet was mostly notes written over in Franks longhand.

"Find anything worth noting ?" Fenton asked, Simmons said nothing for the moment, he found himself wanting to be back at Lakes place across the street. But he forced himself to remain focused on the then and there.

Frank shook his head, "The same guy you talked with on the computer spoke to me, granted access to the pictures just like you said, Seems on the level to me" He replied.

Simmons smriked, "What are you ?" He asked Frank, "Some kind of super smart kid that likes to break into government databases ?" Simmons was partly mad and mostly annoyed. The Hardy's had given him trouble in Jamacia two years before when the Decepticons were stalking a team down there. A missing Persons report reported there took the Hardy's there to try and find the missing woman, who ended up being a Decepticon luring innocents to their deaths in various car bomb attacks.

Simmons and his team had gone there to try and thwart the 'Con, only to find that the 'Con in question was none other than Downshift, who, under orders from Hellfire, had sought a suitible location to hide out away from the 'Bots until it was time to do battle again. And Hellfire was still unhappy about how Downshift had gone to speak with her sister five years before.

Downshift had seen the Hardy's and knew her location of moving to had been where they had come from, and so she informed Molotov as per Stealth's initial plan, the russian like 'Con went to Bayport and killed the man who had begun construction on a new casino resort in the town called Waters Edge. Downshift at the time had been given orders from Stealth to kill the Hardy's as quickly as possible then head to Bayport as fast as she was able.

So she set a sesimic car bomb in their rental car, Sadly, when it had gone off, Simmons and his team were busy questioning the three Hardy's carefully over what they knew and why they were there. The sesimic leveled the parking lot, thankfully the only car in it was the rental the Hardy's had. Simmons never did like how the two boys kept snooping around and was angered briefly at how they had seen some of theo ther Autobots, Pinky's brother Twitchy for one was there and had briefly met the two boys as a robotic lawn tracter that spoke with a french accent and drove on its own. But it was Simmons who ordered them gone from Jamacia as fast as possible before he himself put them in a bomblaced boat and set it off.

So at the time they had left, they went home. So now, they had come full circle. Simmons annoyance at the Hardy's had gone, but now it was back, mostly. So for the moment, they just had to focus. Simmons fired off some more questions. "Why did you break into a top secrect database server ? Still looking for information on that 'car bomb' in Jamacia ?" Simmons made quote marks with his fingers. He knew something they did not.

"What do you mean by 'car bomb' fella ?" Joe asked, recognising Simmons almost instantly. His actions though touted the question.

"Your visit to Jamacia. Amazingly enough we had found who set that bomb, and it was to kill the three of you at the time, so thinking you dead the bomb setter left and returned to America. She lives at the Casino. Anything else you want to know, Mr Hardy ?" Simmons asked glaring at Joe before turning towards Fenton.

"One thing," Fenton said, "Who set the bomb, and why."

"Actually that's two things, but I'll answer them just the same, the President told me to tell you anyhow, you broke into the protected servers for S-Seven. So he gave me clearance to give you only so much information." Simmons replied. He took a deep breath and knew all eyes were on him, even the cat that Joe held, human eyes, crap, he didn't like that too much. "The person that set the bomb was a Decepticon, she lives in town, her name is Downshift, you most likely met her sister with all your snooping around playing detective. Why she set the bomb, no idea comes ot mind other then she'd been doing it a lot before you three got involoved in the War." Simmons grumbled.

"War ?" All four men asked.

"I said too much, if you want to keep your sanity, stay the hell out of what does not concern you." Simmons said moving to leave.

"It concerns us, Agent Simmons, because we were given the case of a missing young woman, last seen at the Casino, an annyomus tip sent to the department sent the police ot the house acorss the tree two days ago, the morning before the new owners bought the place" Fenton said. Stopping Simmons in his tracks.

"Missing persons case... shit" He muttered under his breath, he turned towards Fenton, "For your information, that missing persons case you went on in Jamacia was a lure. So many others had followed it and had also met their deaths, Downshift is nuts. You're better off staying the hell away from her. For all I know ,this is the exact same thing, a lure, to kill you. And possibly others." Simmons grumbled.

"Wait, Downshift ? Is that any relations to Amilia Shift ?" Joe asked. Simmons stared at the younger Hardy, how the hell did he know Downshifts faux name ?

"How did you know that name ?" He asked.

"Found it on the net, A friend of ours was able to hack the Casinos mainframe, even got a outline of its powergrid. Even who owns it, a guy named Tomas Tov, and his apparent head of security, a Miss Amilia Shift. A retired police officer from Vegas." Joe replied. "Does it matter now ?"

"Great." Simmons muttered, "Molotov's in town, just our luck." He sighed and finally nodded his head, "You four, with me, lets go. You, leave a note for ma," Simmons pointed at Frank, "You, keep holding that cat and keep her away from everything in my hotel room. And as for you" Simmons looked at Fenton, "Keep your mouth shut, all of you, of what you see across the street. Got it. Good, bring that paper stack with us too." They all nodded, As did Simmons, he pulled out his iPhone and dialed a number, "This is Team One, we're brining in guests, have the lobby ready." he said. Great, they were having guests over, unwanted guests. The voice on the other end was Swallowtail

{"You know this is a bad idea right ?"} the Mustang replied over the phone, since it was on her comms she apepared to the others to be doing nothing but watching The Weather Channel.

"I know that captain, but these kids got their noses too deep and they need their wings clipped. I'm brining them over in the car." Simmons replied, "Warn the lobby crew will ya."

{"I will, but I don't like it."} Swallowtail said, the line died. That was that.

Simmons headed for the door, he held his hand out towards Frank who carried the stack of papers and notes. "I'll handle those, knowing what might be in there, phone numbers, pictures, printed data from the S-Seven server." Frank looked at him, Fenton looked ready to slug Simmons, but merely nodded towards Frank. It was fine. Though the pictures that Fenton had found of Lake were also in that stack, along with the newest picture Frank printed.

Frank handed the papers over, The group then left the house and went to the dark blue mercedes and got inside. All of them fit perfectly in the large car. Que started the engine and pulled from the house, A minute later and they were pulling up the driveway near to the trailers the two trucks had brought. Que got out as did Simmons. But none of them bothered to open the door for the others to get out. Simmons was leafing through the papers,

"Great, just as I thought. Lake's gonna love this. Hold these" he handed the papers to Que's pretender unit and went into the house, Que followed without a word, there were four pictures of Lake in that stack, pictures Brains had sworn were for him and him only. Nobody else had access to many of those pictures. So Brains had only given access to pictures as of five years previous. That was good.

Swallowtail met Simmons at the door and opened it, "Its about time you got here, the brainiacs aren't too happy to have to pack up and move." She grumbled. Recognising three of the five that had come with them. Great, not good. To Simmons she said, "Have them take a seat in the living room, I'll talk to the others." She barely glanced in the direction of the Hardy's or Chet as she ducked back into the house. Que entered after showing the others in before him. Never offering anything to drink, as the plan was not to let them be there long.

Once they had seated Swallowtail was headed downstairs, having done a intranet uplink lookup of the hardy's looking carefully into every detail, three detectives, two boys that played detective actually. The most part it is quite annoying when the local police try to get thewir heads into something far over their heads. She over heard Simmons say "I'll be right back." He then left to go get Lake.

The day was ending, in a really weird way. They just did not know how weird


	6. Introducing Trouble, Uh oh

_Project Bayport, Project One  
><em>_Chapter 6; Introducing... Trouble {Oh oh}_

Swallowtail shook her head, a hand to her mouth, this was not a good day, Doc wasn't very happy about the newest developments either, letting humans other than NEST and Lake into the house. Swallowtail made sure to shut the door behind her before going into the basement. Doc was hard at work on his weapon creation stuff. And so far there was nothing to be noticed of anyone having been in the house for a good five or six years, at least it was kept clean.

Doc was puttering about as normal, His wild white hair splayed out everywhere, Brains on a table in his laptop form. Chittering to himself, sometimes laughing. But Doc was not happy, not at all. "What's this about Simmons bringing over some snoops ?" Doc asked, barely giving the Mustang time to get her bearings in the basement.

"According to the playback data Toi collected the two men I spoke with yesterday morning tailed Lake and Toi to the casino with two friends of theirs as well only hours later, from the sounds of things, they got themsevles into big trouble." She replayed the conversation that Simmons had with Fenton, Simmons had been kind enough to have his recording system running on his iPhone. Though to everyone else it looked like an iPhone clock.

"So those two and their father had come across one of Downshifts toys in Jamaica, huh." Duc muttered, humans were a strange race, smaller than a Cybertronian, but they could make themselves that size if they wanted to do so. "never thought it possible, looks like we may have unwanted allies again. So much for going under cover and trying to blend in." Doc muttered he reshifted to his normal non mad scientist desguise. "Lets go meet the guests." he said.

* * *

><p>When Simmons when to Lakes room he found it empty, Lennox in the other room on his laptop, which was not a Cybertronian, said she went to go take a nap. Simmons asked where and was directed to the garage. As he passed through the living area he said "Went to the wrong room, be right back. Dutch!" The man named Dutch nodded and went to the romm that Simmons had just vacated.<p>

Simmons went out into the garage, Irtonhide was out there with Pinky working on something, defense work apparently, Wheelie was with them on a shielf keeping watch on someone important. 'Hide pointed Simmons towards Wheelie and said nothing, focused more on the work of art that Pinky was making out of some old weapons they had found laying around.

Simmons went to the open trunk of the Mustang frame that belonged to Swallowtail, still unable to truly fathom how these Autobots managed to do it all and put up with humans in the first place. But they weren't killing him, so that was a good thing.

The first thing Simmons saw was Wheelie sitting on the open trunk lid keeping lookout, Then there was the pair of bare feet draped over with scarlet cloth as if it were a blanket. Lake was asleep soundly. Amazingly enough it made Simmons smile as Lake could sleep anywhere, right then she was asleep in Swallowtails' trunk And from what Simm ons saw, was holding tightly to her jade necklace in one hand. What importance was it anyhow ? Simmons made a mental note to ask her later.

Simmons tweaked Lakes foot that was closer to him, "Hey snoozer! We got some guests that want to meet you and shorty" Wheelie gave Simmons a blank look, but said nothing. Sometimes it was hard to make Humans see the differeances, he and Screecher were small yes, but they were useful. But waking up Lake like that was Simmons own funeral.

Lake was awake in a nanosecond, her hand reaching out of reflex for Simmons throat. Had Simmons still stood where he had been he'd have been strangled. But then his words managed to penetrate the sleep heavy brain of Lake. Time to waken, ok then. Lake all but fell out of the trunk of the Mustang. Her hair was uncovered for the moment. And for the moment she kept it that way. Better to look more like Swallowtail than not, she figured.

Without a word, Wheelie closed the trunk lid and transformed to his RC truck mode and wandered in step with Lake, once step behind. The three then entered the house, Lake by then was once more wearing her jade necklace. She saw the cat had its eyes on her closely. Or rather, her necklace.

Simmons spoke first, "Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to some of our operatives, This is Emmet Brown, we call him Doc, but not the medical kind, the Arab fellow there is our medic, known as Ratchet, never told us his true name, everyone called him that anyhow in the army. You already know Swallowtail. This is Toi, that there is Wheelie. Lastly, our Operetive, Layla."

Lake barely nodded, all of a sudden not liking how all eyes were on her, but she recognised two of the five that had 'come to vist' She barely blinked, Swallowtail leaned against the counter that seperated the living room from the large kitchen. The amazing likeness bwetween the two women, one wore red and had no tattoos on her face was the same exact hight as the woman who had ice blue eyes and wore more ancient styled clothing. Though thankfully niether of them were mad, they were more or less annoyed and Lake looked more annoyed at being woken up.

Once everyone was introduced Frank spoke while looking at Lake, "You're the woman in the picture ?" He asked thoughtfully. Lake just stared at him coldly, she recognised him in a heartbeat. The man from the elevator.

And now she knew his name.

Finally she nodded, "Yes" She replied. "It matter why." She asked.

"Just curious." Frank replied. It was clear he wanted to search the house. Lake already had done just that. And found nothing out of the norm, for the moment at least.

"Something tells me this is not just the typical meet the neighbors." Toi spoke up, he too recognised two of the four. "you two were at the casino yesterday when Layla and I were there."

"Yes" Lake spoke up, looking pointedly at Frank, "You were in elevator, remember what I say to you." Frank just nodded, he recognised Lake alright, though her name, Layla seemed strange, possibly a fake name, he'd search on it later.

Fenton nodded and explained why he personally wanted to get into the house, to search its basement for anything out of the norm. Doc traded looks with Swallowtail and Toi but nothing was said, with a stiff nod Doc consented to allowing the Organic downstairs as long as nothing was touched. As long as Swallowtail watched him like a hawk, The mustang nodded.

Frank was alarmed at how alike Swallowtail was with Layla. The two women looked so much alike, yet only one of them had tattoos of weird writing on the right side of her face and neck, and possibly down her body too. He watched as his father left him and his brother and Chet along with Blackie with simmons and the other three. Brown seemed a nice fellow.

Boy was Frank ever wrong.

* * *

><p>Swallowtail led Fenton downstairs, hitting the lights as the Autobot entered she stepped aside to let Fenton see the first room of the three room basement area. The first room had stacks of boxes everywhere, the second room had tables set up and strange stuff sorted on them, werid greenish colored liquid bubbled in pans and other devices, metal devices were stacked everywhere on the floor. In the third room was storage, boxes of unpacked metal devices and more of that greenish watery stuff were in there.<p>

Fenton walked around carefully, taking in everything, mostly focused on the walls and floor. Looking over everything carefully. Every crack, every surface of the walls and floor was examined.

"Find anything important Mr Hardy ?" Swallowtail asked.

"Nothing but more questions." Fenton replied.

"I can answer them." Swallowtail replied after sending a simple {"He wants to know what we're doing, I trust him. He seems a good man to trust. What else has Brains found ?"}

{"Tell him as much as you can answer without giving away the farm, Brains is doing a NEST access search on Fenton Hardy, so far so good, I trust your spark insinct, Good luck."} Doc replied.

"To a point" Swallowtail concluded.

Fenton looked at her, clearly curious, "One thing I do not understand is how a annoymus tip to the police led to a fruitless search around this house and its grounds. The tip said weird lights and sounds were coming from here the night before you and yours arrived here. I wanted to try and get inside to search more carefully. But this is unexpected. What do you plan to accomplish ? Making something important no doubt" Fenton said sweeping his hand at Docs workplace, so far seven boomsticks had been created and only one grappler had been made. There was a few screens written over in the same langauge as what apparently was on the asian womans face as far as Fenton could tell.

"Then the tip was to the wrong house" Swallowtail replied softly, "We searched this house carefully when we bought it, mapping every detail. Its a habit of mine to know the details of every building I visit." The mustang had indeed made it a habit after coming back from the dead.

"Really, nothing out of the norm for a house that was recently the location of a missing porson." Fenton said somewhat angerly.

Swallowtail didn't like the tone in the mans voice. She spoke, her voice cold and quiet stern, "You imply that we kidnapped another person and hid them here ?" She too had done a intranet search on the case, looking so deep it made her dizzy and then put Brains on the case. Infact it was Brains, the laptop that spoke online with Fenton and his son Frank on the Hardy Computer.

Fenton didn't answer as he looked around, instead he said, "No, I imply simply that this house was in use before you and yours arrived." Fenton had moved to a corner of the basement, "Which way is the street ?"

"The house runs paralell to the lane, also borders a small wood to the south, that wall." Swallowtail pointed to the wall oppisit Fenton, as if pointing at the road. There were two windows leading to the front, and one to the side, the third window was where the strange lights were seen. Swallowtail then did a careful scan of the wall Fenton was near, Finding a door hidden so well even the Autobots and Lake missed it.

Only problem was, the energy barrier guarding it she recognised right away. Decepticons had been there once already. They knew this house. No wonder the Autobots never found the hidden place. Fenton was about ot touch the deadly barrier had Swallowtail not latched a firm hand on his arm and pulled him back. "No touch unless you plan to meet your maker." she growled into his ear, then picked up a metal table leg and poked at the wall.

Sparks sprang from the wall and the tableleg, though metal, lit afire. The Autobot woman looked at the fire for a moment, quietly contemplating it Fenton assumed, however she was contacting the others. {"Decepticon barrier, west wall, Doc, you need to see this."} She contacted over her comms. Providing also a live feed to the DeLorean

Doc noticed it and snickered over the comm {"That's Molotov's signature, he's hiding something behind the barrier, It seems to be a simple codec, think you can break it ?"} He replied

Swallowtail then knew what to do {"I'll try"}. With Fenton watching her she went to a pretty darn normal looking brick and passed her hand over it. A interactive holographic keypad appeared. Strange lettering covered it completely. Only Molotov would make something so simple. However after scanning it carefully the last person to use it was her own twin sister, making it even simpler. She started typing.

Fenton was about to complain at being pulled so suddenly from the wall examination but checked himself when he saw the spark on the metal and the metal catch fire. He stared at the asian appearing woman in complete confusion. "How did you..." He started to ask, but shut up when he saw the keypad appear from under her hand from a simple wave. He couldn't understand the writing on the keypad.

Swallowtail typed one command string, on a whim, and the keypad beeped "Failure to Unlock" Swallowtail snickered, Seemed that Downshift had made it slightly harder. She typed another string, this one being their date and time of birth, In this case switching a key.

The code she typed was -55:MYSISTER:-1

The keypad screen shown in green "CODE CONFIRMED" it blinked twice and the hologram of the brick wall faded to show a steel door. Clearly Cybertronian metal It slid open.

As it did so Swallowtail stared mouth agape at what was inside the only other room of the house basement. Fenton did as well, but in confusion, not shock. Inside the sealed room was crate upon crate of High Grade refined Energon, hundreds of boxes of it was locked away. A pale pinkish glow came from each crate, marked over in Cybertronian.

{"Doc, It seems we bought ourselves trouble."} Swallowtail called on her comms, providing a live feed as well.

Doc's reply came as reassuring, {"Keep the human out, don't touch anything. Relock the door, change the code if you can, if not keep it as is. Bring the human back up here, doubtless he has many more questions now."} Doc said.

Swallowtail did as told, with Fenton staring in confusion and starting to step forwards as the woman typed into the keypad to relock the door. "No touch, if you touch, you hurt yourself, or worse, loose your life." the Cybertronian said. Fenton stayed his pace and backed up as the door started to slide shut.

He pointed at the closing door, more like what was behind it. "What is that ?" He asked.

"It is best if you were not told. Or have you not learned that the less you are told, the less you have to lie about later if caught ? It is bad enough you saw it all anyhow. Upstairs. I'll be right behind you." Swallowtail said as the hologram reappeared, it was so perfectly made that it blended absolutely perfectly with the rest of the wall.

Fenton, not liking things one bit did as told, as he was moving towards thre stairs he heard movement of items behind him and saw the asian woman moving several stacked box like crates in front of the wall, making it look as if the area were for storage of other items. The woman then turned to head for the stairs, Fenton headed up.

* * *

><p>The mood in the living room didn't let up much as the white haired man seemed to dodge every question from Frank and his brother, and their friend. However Doc had more questions for them to only ask how he knew. To which he repeated the questions more forcefully. "Why was it that you two followed two of my own family members to the casino, snooping on my kids were you now ?"<p>

Frank answered first before his brother could speak up and get himself into more trouble. The fact Simmons was there made things slightly worse. "We were curious about the pickup truck, we saw that it was also entered in the offroading and campout this weekend. We were curious and wanted to meet the owner." The truth of the matter being they were more concerned about a missing persons case and wanted to get into the house to search it more carefully.

Doc shook his head, "Well, it seems that we both want something different, for one thing I am working on something very important downstairs and for another I don't want any meddlers such as yourselves to get yourselves deeper into trouble than you already are. Be happy I let your father down stairs with my eldest." Even that was a dumb move. But Doc was a master at most tactical things, this was just a minor setback. Fenton had questions, plenty of them.

Frank then asked, "We know only so much about you, the three of you are apparently car collectors, the pickup truck is in amazing condition, from what a friend of ours found out in a internet search on VINs we found out that the pickup truck was in a car accident several years ago and parts for it are very rare to locate, and when found are very expensive." To this Toi nodded, Doc as well. The little RC truck sat near Lakes feet. Seemingly not moving.

Lennox exited the den turned bedroom and spoke towards Emmett "Look up's done, Mr Tov's got more holdings in several local banks than Genard Robinson at first and goal. We also got the lowdown on some of the locals too." He said setting down a stack of papers that Brains had managed to find and print off. "We're also out of printer ink." At that Lake snickered and spoke briefly in Cybertronian towards the man.

"Second cabnit, bottom drawer. Use this." She tossed him a keyring. Swallowtails keyring. Swallowtail kept hold of the printer ink under lock and key, an old fashioned lock and key. Not that new dangfangled digital stuff either. Lennox snickered as he caught the item. "Return keys when done." Lake said. Lennox nodded.

Doc spoke up as he picked up the papers, shifting through them. They were translated by Brains into Cybertronian so noboby but the Autobots and some of the NEST teams could read it. "Good, they can be trusted, all of them, even the cat. Keep the computer keyboards covered." He said. What did he mean ?

* * *

><p>It was then that Fenton returned from seeing the basement, followed heartbeats later by the other Asian appearing woman. "Well, that was uneventful." He said thoughtfully, he had seen the many crates of refined energon downstairs, and now the troupe that was there in that house owning it had reason to defend it, at least until they could move the Energon somewhere else. "I still want to get more of a look around this property. The tip said weird lights were seen inside this house two nights ago, the night before you guys arrived, the morning you arrived actually." Fenton said to Doc<p>

"And search you shall, but first let me tell you what it was you found downstairs, it was my workplace." Doc said, "I must say, you look as if you were running in all directions for pictures of one of us." Doc had a very faint smile on his face as Fenton stared at him.

"That was you ?" Fenton said, wondering who it was now that gave him access to some pictures he had printed off. In the stack of papers on that coffee table in the home of the Autobots

Doc shook his head, "Not me, but I might know who it was." He replied. Fenton gave him a pointed look, "I give my permission to search the grounds outside more if that is what you wish to do. You've seen the weapons laboratory already along with the storeroom for it that was keycoded." Doc said.

Fenton nodded, "Fair enough, but it still does not make sense." He said, he explained the case then, "Ten days ago a young woman working at the Casino in town went missing after putting money into the Bayport City Bank the casino has an account there. The woman was last seen with the director of security for the casino, swears she dropped the woman off at her home. But the womans husband said his wife never came home. Decleared her missing the next day out of worry. We've been looking for her since then." Fenton said.

Frank nodded, however it was Joe that spoke up, "We took the case yesterday afternoon at the request of the Chief so Dad could work on the government case. The night and morning before you got here someone was doing something in your basement turned lab" Joe explained the weird lights and noises. It was possible the missing woman was somewhere in the house or on the grounds, but the police searched carefully once already outside.

Swallowtail spoke up, "You live across the street, did you see anything out of the norm in terms of cars or trucks or whatnot out in front of this house, or in the drive ?" She asked the Hardy's only Frank nodded. "You saw something ?"

"Three days ago, the day before you guys arrived, someone in a red Challenger was looking at the house, with them was a real estate agent it looked like." Frank explained. Giving as best possible detailed explination of the womans appearance.

Simmons and Lake traded a look as Swallowtail seemed to go stiff. Lennox spoke. "Great, its bad enough we had to face what she left in Jamacia." Downshift was a killer, hated humans, but suffered enough to work with one or two. The Hardy's looked at Lennox, confused. Lennox just shook his head and headed down the hall to where Swallowtail kept the printer ink under lock and key. However he heard Swallowtail spekaing.

"In Jamaica you came across some of Amila Shifts' nasty surprises for snoops. Get in too far and you get killed, sometimes you get killed, just as collatoral damage, She doesn't care who dies or why, just as long as her mission is completed. She is happy when others are killed." The mustang said.

"So this woman is a killer, how can we stop her ?" Joe said jumping right to the point, all but getting in Swallowtail's face as he spoke. "What do we do ?"

"For one thing you can get out of it while you still can" Swallowtail replied calmly, though slightly annoyed at the younger Hardy. It was bad enough NEST was involoved. But having these guys made things slightly worse. "You already came across one of her bombs in Jamaica, don't let it happen here. Worse thing that could happen is she gives herself away. Molotov as well." The Mustang mused.

Doc was nodding as she spoke, "It is possible that Downshift could give herself away when setting a bomb, or otherwise."

All the talk of some other people made the four men asked, by Frank, "Who and who ?"

Swallowtail grunted something after trading looks with Doc who had said these men could be given details, even though Simmons did not want them to have such. Then said, "Amilia Shift is my twin sister Downshift, a Decepticon, her boss and owner of the casino is Molotov, a russian type Decepticon."

"What does that make you guys ?" Chet asked.

"The good guys." Wheelie replied finally speaking up as he rolled forwards. Frank looked at the RC truck curiously, Blackie jumped from Chet's arms and stepped closer, inspecting the little truck. It had spoken.

"Scat! Ya darned thing!" Wheelie then transformed, thus giving away the farm right then and there, Wheelie even withdrew his stun laser, mounted on his right shoulder. "Back off or I'll shoot!"

Frank whistled, Blackie scampered into Joe's arms and stared at Wheelie, what the hell was that ? Frank asked the same question, with a finger pointed at Wheelie he asked simply, "What is that ?"

Wheelie snickered and turned towards Frank, with a flurish he introduced himself to the Hardy's and Chet, "I'm not a what, I'm a who, The name's Wheelie, I'm a Autobot, from the planet Cybertron."

It was then Fenton spoke up before Wheelie could continue. "Wait, Autbots and Decepticons, There was something going on in Chicago five years ago, what was that all about ? It was said on the news that Chicago was attacked by the Decepticons. Why ? What were they trying to do ?"

"Take over the planet." Simmons replied. The looks given to him said it all, these people just did not know what was going on. "twelve years ago the Decepticons came to earth looking for their leader, Megatron, he was looking for their energy source device called the All Spark. When Witwickey destroyed the all spark and at the time Megatron the Decepticons went into hiding. Vegas got rebult like it never happened." Fenton nodded.

"I remember reading about that in the local news, Vegas had suffered an attack of some form and the government said it was a experiment gone wrong concerning robotic systems." He said.

Simmons nodded as did Lake. "The government lied, simple as that. " Simmons said, then taking on a stiff tone he said "Layla, shades." Lake nodded and moved to close the window drapes carefully. Simmons turned towards everyone else, "Anything you're about to learn and see in this house cannot go outside this house. Those two other men, Tony Wong and Buford Hooper, get hold of them on the phone and tell them to come to the house across from yours. SecDef Keller gave clearance for for you and them to know some of what you're knee deep in so far." He tossed over a cellphone.

Joe did as requested, within a minute or two he had called both Biff and Tony, and both boys where on their way over, he set the cellphone on the coffee table, then noticed the strangely written papers on the table. He stared at them, picking one of them up, "Is this some sort of ancient langauge ?" He asked, he showed the paper, which actually listed their home adress, who lived their and their ages and also dates of birth and the places they had bank accounts with and otherwise were listed, but in Cybertronian.

Swallowtail snickered, "Sort of, its in Cybertronian." She explained, "Our home language. We write in it often to get messeages past humans. They can't read it very well. At least, most of them can't, Doc and Brains had since made a translation system to auto translate the written langauge when its scanned."

"What ? You mean, you guys are aliens ? And work with humans ?" Joe asked. Blackie sat in his arms still scared of the RC-truck-turned-robot with its weird weapons. However when Blackie had scampered off Wheelie had put his weapons away, he'd not shoot unless he had dire need to.

Lake took a seat against the wall on the floor, "Wheelie, find Frenzy, I need him to do something for me." She spoke in Chinese, Frank only caught scant bitsw of it, such as 'do' and 'Wheelie' and 'find Frenzy' whatever that meant. The little blue and silver robot nodded his … head... and scuttled off, swiftly transforming back to his RC truck form and shooting off, humming off key.

As this was happening Toi spoke up, with a nod he said "Yup, we're aliens, but not the ones you think we are to be, like in the movies or some such. You already saw Wheelie in his true form. The trucks and cars outside are our true land going modes to blend in with, otherwise we use what is called Pretender Units to get around with humans. Holomatter works only so far when driving a car or truck, can't really exit the car or the holomatter form fades." He explained.

"So that explains it, that woman driving the red car to the casino today, that must have been Amilia Shift." Joe said thoughtfully.

Swallowtail nodded, her sister was seen in her alt mode and also a holodriver. Then she said. "I saw your jeep, nice ride, but can it keep up to Toi or even Ironhide ? When the going gets tough ?" Swallowtail said to Joe. A smirk on her face

"How'd you know I drive a jeep ?" Joe asked.

"The same way I know you tailed Toi and Layla to the Casino yesterday with two other guys." Swallowtail replied, the smirk still on her face. "I even heard your entire conversation about my driveablity. I assure you that I can get anywhere required when required."

Frank then sat back in his chair, "Why tell us this now ?" He asked, giving a confused look to towards Simmons. It was clear he was confused.

"Better to tell you when you're alive to know what you are up against, Wheelie used to be a Decepticon before he made the choice to join the Autobots. The good guys." As he spoke a meter tall white colored robot scampered into view. The four blue eyes the hacker had stared at everything in four different directions, It instantly spotted Lake and went to her side. Simmons introduced the new arrival to the others as Frenzy.

Fenton stood up, "This doesn't make any sense, The tip sent to the police station directed the police here, they found nothing amiss, and couldn't get in because they didn't have a key, therefore no way to enter and search. Is this everyone in this little group you have with you or are there more ?" Fenton asked towards Simmons then towards Lake. Who was still seated on the floor. Frenzy plopped himself down next to her and kept an eye on everyone. Doing intranet searches on them all carefully.

"You already saw basement lab" Lake said, speaking in her poor english, "You saw also store room for basement lab. What more to see." She asked.

"Plenty, I want to explore the house more and meet everyone in this house." Fenton said. Giving the asian woman a hard look, though Lake matched his stare with her own hazel eyes, never backing down.

Simmons snickered, "That wont be easy, you already met some of us here." Ratchet said speaking up for the first time to the group. "You know Swallowtail, Toi and Doc, whom you call Emmet and myself, and have also seen both Frenzy and Wheelie in their true forms. You best hope then that you never met a Decepticon in their true forms. Or their Pretender Units for that matter" The medic said.

Simmons nodded, "He's right, you guys are in too deep as it is. Best to try and keep out of it more. I'll get the other guys so you can meet them, you already know the two trucks outside." Simmons then left to go to the den.

Lake stood up. {"Simmons woke me early, I'm going back to sleep."} She said in Cybertronian to her 'sister', Swallowtail nodded, then before heading to bed, now seen clearly by Frank and his father, that she was bare foot. She left the living room and headed to the bedroom to sleep.

* * *

><p>Downshift drove sullenly through the town, carefully taking in every detail, scanning everything for residue of her sister or even of Lake, the meddlesome woman that lived with her sister. Nothing so far. Downshift parked her car and stepped out, the young appearing asian woman carried a simple pistol hidden in her arms that could become her massive cannon if she needed it, but Molotov said to be as subtle as possible this trip, so a few bullet holes to a car door wouldn't be too bad, and next to impossible to trace since the Cybertronian weapons were not like earth weapons.<p>

Downshift walked around, appearing to be a young college student wandering the park, though she walked on the street pretty much a lot. Looking carefully at the road, scanning everything. There. Residue of her sisters tires, and also - She gave a Cybertronian equivlant of a gulp- Ironhide. Great, that truck was in Bayport. She was scared of the massive weapon master.

She stood up, as she did so, a car, a afternoon driver came up to her and honked his horn loudly, since they were in the local park area, the sound carried, The guy honked a few times, Downshift faked a grimice then smirked to herself, "I think he wants to communicate" She said thoughtfully, turninig swiftly she fired six shots of Cybertronian 9.88 expander rounds into the car, first the tires exploded, then the hood ruptered, then the windshield -and driver-, exploded, and lastly, the gastank caught fire.

However even just a normal boom like that was not what Downshift wanted for meddlesome humans, taking out a small device she armed it, and tossed the sesimic grenade, it rolled under the burning car, Downshift then left the area, returning to her car, as soon as she sat in her car and closed the door, her sensors registered the explosion of the Sesimic grenade. Mission complete.

Downshift surely had her sisters attention.


End file.
